Authentication techniques including speech and/or lip movement analysis

ABSTRACT

A system, apparatus, method, and machine readable medium are described for attesting an authenticator. For example, one embodiment of an apparatus comprises: a processor to execute an app; and an authenticator to generate a first authentication key and to securely store the first authentication key, the authenticator to generate an attestation object usable by a relying party to confirm authenticity of the authenticator, the attestation object including a first component provided by the authenticator, a second component provided by the app, and a signature generated by the first authentication key over a combination of the first and second components.

BACKGROUND Field of the Invention

This invention relates generally to the field of data processingsystems. More particularly, the invention relates to advanced userauthentication techniques and associated applications.

Description of Related Art

FIG. 1 illustrates an exemplary client 120 with a biometric device 100.When operated normally, a biometric sensor 102 reads raw biometric datafrom the user (e.g., capture the user's fingerprint, record the user'svoice, snap a photo of the user, etc) and a feature extraction module103 extracts specified characteristics of the raw biometric data (e.g.,focusing on certain regions of the fingerprint, certain facial features,etc). A matcher module 104 compares the extracted features 133 withbiometric reference data 110 stored in a secure storage on the client120 and generates a score 153 based on the similarity between theextracted features and the biometric reference data 110. The biometricreference data 110 is typically the result of an enrollment process inwhich the user enrolls a fingerprint, voice sample, image or otherbiometric data with the device 100. An application 105 may then use thescore 135 to determine whether the authentication was successful (e.g.,if the score is above a certain specified threshold).

Systems have also been designed for providing secure user authenticationover a network using biometric sensors. In such systems, the score 135generated by the application 105, and/or other authentication data, maybe sent over a network to authenticate the user with a remote server.For example, Patent Application No. 2011/0082801 (“'801 Application”)describes a framework for user registration and authentication on anetwork which provides strong authentication (e.g., protection againstidentity theft and phishing), secure transactions (e.g., protectionagainst “malware in the browser” and “man in the middle” attacks fortransactions), and enrollment/management of client authentication tokens(e.g., fingerprint readers, facial recognition devices, smartcards,trusted platform modules, etc).

The assignee of the present application has developed a variety ofimprovements to the authentication framework described in the '801application. Some of these improvements are described in the followingset of US patent applications (“Co-pending Applications”), all filedDec. 29, 1012, which are assigned to the present assignee: Ser. No.13/730,761, Query System and Method to Determine AuthenticationCapabilities; Ser. No. 13/730,776, System and Method for EfficientlyEnrolling, Registering, and Authenticating With Multiple AuthenticationDevices; Ser. No. 13/730,780, System and Method for Processing RandomChallenges Within an Authentication Framework; Ser. No. 13/730,791,System and Method for Implementing Privacy Classes Within anAuthentication Framework; Ser. No. 13/730,795, System and Method forImplementing Transaction Signaling Within an Authentication Framework.

Briefly, the Co-Pending Applications describe authentication techniquesin which a user enrolls with biometric devices of a client to generatebiometric template data (e.g., by swiping a finger, snapping a picture,recording a voice, etc); registers the biometric devices with one ormore servers over a network (e.g., Websites or other relying partiesequipped with secure transaction services as described in the Co-PendingApplications); and subsequently authenticates with those servers usingdata exchanged during the registration process (e.g., encryption keysprovisioned into the biometric devices). Once authenticated, the user ispermitted to perform one or more online transactions with a Website orother relying party. In the framework described in the Co-PendingApplications, sensitive information such as fingerprint data and otherdata which can be used to uniquely identify the user, may be retainedlocally on the user's client device (e.g., smartphone, notebookcomputer, etc) to protect a user's privacy.

Authenticators such as those described above require some form of userinteraction such as swiping the finger, or entering a secret code. These“normal” authenticators are intended to authenticate the user at a givenpoint in time. In addition, “silent” authenticators may also be usedwhich are designed to authenticate the user's device at a given point intime (rather than the user). These silent authenticators may rely oninformation extracted from the user's device without interaction by theuser (e.g., sending a Machine-ID).

However, there are certain use cases where requiring explicit userinteraction presents too much friction (e.g., near field communication(NFC) payments, frequently used apps requiring authentication withoutbeing tied to high value transactions), whereas a “silent”authentication technique such as sending a Machine-ID does not provideenough certainty that the legitimate user is still in possession of thedevice.

Several “continuous” authentication methods have been proposed by theresearch community such as Anthony J. Nicholson, “Mobile Device SecurityUsing Transient Authentication,” IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MOBILE COMPUTINGVOL. 5, NO. 11, pp. 1489-1502 (November 2006); Mohammad O. Derawi,“Unobtrusive User-Authentication on Mobile Phones using Biometric GaitRecognition” (2010); and Koichiro Niinuma, Anil K. Jain, “ContinuousUser Authentication Using Temporal Information” (currently athttp://www.cse.msu.edu/biometrics/Publications/Face/NiinumaJain_ContinuousAuth_SPIE10.pdf).Some of these methods have even been adopted by the industry such asBehavioSec, “Measuring FAR/FRR/EER in Continuous Authentication,”Stockholm, Sweden (2009). These methods generally provide an assurancelevel that the legitimate user is still in possession a device withoutadding friction to the authentication process, but they focus on asingle modality (i.e. using a wearable token, gait recognition, face andcolor of clothing recognition and user's keyboard input).

One problem which exists, however, is that directly providing locationdata or other personal (e.g. face image, color of clothing, gait ortyping characteristics, . . . ) or environmental data (e.g. temperature,humidity, WLAN SSIDs, . . . ) to the relying party for supplementing therisk estimation violates the user's privacy in some regions of theworld. Consequently, more advanced remote authentication techniques areneeded which are both non-intrusive and adequately protect the enduser's privacy.

In addition, the strength of current authentication methods (e.g.passwords, fingerprint authentication, etc) is mostly constant overtime, but the resulting risk varies based on the current environment inwhich authentication is performed (e.g. the machine being used, thenetwork the machine is connected to, etc). It would be beneficial toselect and/or combine authentication modalities based on the currentdetected risk.

When considering increasing the assurance level of authentication,typical methods for enhancing the level of explicit authenticationmethods like requiring more complex passwords or use more accuratebiometric methods like fingerprint or face recognition come to mind. Inreality, the authentication assurance level (or the transaction riskderived from it) also depends on other data, such as whether theauthentication performed from the same device as before and whether thelocation of the authentication is realistically near to the location ofthe last successful authentication (e.g., authentication at 1 pm in SanFrancisco and at 2 pm same day in Tokyo doesn't seem to be realistic forone person).

Passwords still are the predominant explicit authentication methods.Unfortunately they are attacked easily and those attacks scale well.Additionally, entering passwords is cumbersome especially on smalldevices like smartphones. As a consequence many users do not usepassword based protection methods to lock their phones at all or theyuse trivial PIN code.

Some smartphones are using fingerprint sensors in order to provide amore convenient way to authentication. Using biometric modalities forauthentication has been criticized for not providing sufficient spoofingattack resistance and for introducing privacy issues by potentially notprotecting biometric reference data properly.

Various “fusion” methods for combining biometric modalities have beenproposed. Some of them address usability issues by reducing the falserejection rate (FRR); other address the security issue by reducing thefalse acceptance rate (FAR). These methods thus far have proposed staticfusion algorithms. Unfortunately this approach still leads to varyingassurance levels depending on the “other inputs” (as discussed above).

For certain classes of transactions, the riskiness associated with thetransaction may be inextricably tied to the location where thetransaction is being performed. For example, it may be inadvisable toallow a transaction that appears to originate in a restricted country,such as those listed on the US Office of Foreign Asset Control List(e.g., Cuba, Libya, North Korea, etc). In other cases, it may only bedesirable to allow a transaction to proceed if a stronger authenticationmechanism is used; for example, a transaction undertaken from within thecorporation's physical premises may require less authentication than oneconducted from a Starbucks located in a remote location where thecompany does not have operations.

However, reliable location data may not be readily available for avariety of reasons. For example, the end user's device may not have GPScapabilities; the user may be in a location where Wifi triangulationdata is unavailable or unreliable; the network provider may not supportprovide cell tower triangulation capabilities to augment GPS, or Wifitriangulation capabilities. Other approaches to divine the device'slocation may not have a sufficient level of assurance to meet theorganization's needs; for example, reverse IP lookups to determine ageographic location may be insufficiently granular, or may be masked byproxies designed to mask the true network origin of the user's device.

In these cases, an organization seeking to evaluate the riskiness of atransaction may require additional data to provide them with additionalassurance that an individual is located in a specific geographic area todrive authentication decisions.

Another challenge for organizations deploying authentication is to matchthe “strength” of the authentication mechanism to the inherent riskspresented by a particular user's environment (location, device,software, operating system), the request being made by the user ordevice (a request for access to restricted information, or to undertakea particular operation), and the governance policies of theorganization.

To date, organizations have had to rely on a fairly static response tothe authentication needs of its users: the organization evaluates therisks a user will face during operations they normally perform and therequirements of any applicable regulatory mandate, and then deploys anauthentication solution to defend against that risk and achievecompliance. This usually requires the organization to deploy multipleauthentication solutions to address the multitude and variety of risksthat their different users may face, which can be especially costly andcumbersome to manage.

The techniques described in the Co-pending Applications provide anabstraction that allows the organization to identify existingcapabilities on the user's device that can be used for authentication.This abstraction shields an organization from the need to deploy avariety of different authentication solutions. However, the organizationstill needs a way to invoke the “correct” authentication mechanism whennecessary. Existing implementations provide no capabilities for theorganization to describe what authentication mechanism is appropriateunder which circumstances. As a result, an organization would likelyneed to codify their authentication policy in code, making the solutionbrittle and necessitating code changes in the future to enable use ofnew authentication devices/tokens.

Electronic financial transactions today are conducted primarily throughthe World Wide Web using browser applications. Sites like Amazon.com,Dell, and Wal-Mart sell billions of dollars of merchandise via theironline portals and banks and brokerages allow their customers to movebillions of dollars of funds from account to account online. Onechallenge for web sites such as these is how to detect fraudulentactivity. Fraudulent transactions can cost these companies billions ofdollars.

The first line of defense against fraudulent transactions is the user'spassword. However, criminals can obtain passwords through a variety oftechniques. Sometimes the password is weak in complexity and can easilybe guessed or determined by a brute force attack. Other times, malware,worms, or viruses can infect a users computer. Passwords are thenobtained by recording keystrokes or scanning memory or hard diskstorage. If the actual device is stolen, passwords can be recovered fromdata that remains in memory or in storage. Once the password iscompromised, criminals have the ability to access accounts and withdrawor move funds.

To try to prevent damage caused by the breach of a user's password,sites that deal with financial transactions employ risk assessment inwhich various metrics are used to determine if the person initiating thetransaction is actually the user that owns the account. Factors such asthe time of the transaction, the location of the transaction, and thecircumstances of the transactions are all good ways to assess whether atransaction has risk. For example, it would be more unlikely for atransaction to be initiated at 3:00 AM versus 3:00 PM if the user doesnot typically have any activity on their account at night. Likewise, ifthe user lives in the United States but the transaction is initiated inKorea, that location difference would be a warning sign. Finally, if theamount of money being processed is significantly different in magnitudethan normal, this is another signal of potential fraud.

Unfortunately, Web browsers place very strict limits on what informationwebsites can obtain about the client system. Because browsers expose auser's machine to the outside (and possibly malicious) world, leakingany more data than necessarily is a security risk of its own. Certainly,it is possible to record the time of transactions, the location of thetransaction (via the user's IP address for example), and the magnitudeof the transaction. Web sites currently use all of this data todetermine whether a transaction is fraudulent. However, beyond thesebasic pieces of information provided by the browser, web sites have noother information to utilize for risk assessment. Because of thelimitations on what information the browsers can obtain, riskassessments for a user's transaction are not very precise.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

A better understanding of the present invention can be obtained from thefollowing detailed description in conjunction with the followingdrawings, in which:

FIG. 1 illustrates an exemplary client equipped with a biometric device;

FIG. 2 illustrates one embodiment of a non-intrusive privacy-preservingauthenticator (NIPPA);

FIG. 3 graphically illustrates the operation of one embodiment of theinvention during a “legitimate user state” and following the legitimateuser state;

FIG. 4 illustrate one embodiment of a method for non-intrusiveprivacy-preserving authentication;

FIG. 5 illustrates a distance function employed for location-basedauthentication in one embodiment;

FIG. 6 graphically illustrates the operation of one embodiment of theinvention using an extended legitimate user state window;

FIG. 7 illustrates an adaptive authentication module in accordance withone embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 8 illustrates one embodiment of an adaptive authentication method;

FIG. 9 graphically illustrates adaptive authentication in accordancewith one embodiment;

FIG. 10 illustrates one embodiment of a composite authenticator with aplurality of components.

FIG. 11 illustrates one embodiment in which two authenticators sharecomponents.

FIG. 12 illustrates one embodiment of an authenticator which includescomponent authentication logic for managing a component authenticationkey (CAK) pair for authenticating components.

FIG. 13 illustrates a transaction diagram showing one embodiment ofauthentication between two components.

FIG. 14 illustrates static authenticator in accordance with oneembodiment of the invention.

FIG. 15 illustrates a dynamic authenticator in accordance with oneembodiment of the invention.

FIG. 16 illustrate an exemplary system architecture on which embodimentsof the invention may be implemented.

FIG. 17 illustrates one embodiment of a system for performinglocation-aware application of authentication policy;

FIG. 18 illustrates an exemplary set of authentication policy rules;

FIG. 19 illustrates a method in accordance with one embodiment of theinvention;

FIG. 20 illustrates one embodiment of the invention in which location isdetermined or confirmed by proximity of other peer or network devices;

FIG. 21 illustrates one embodiment of a system for authentication whichuses environmental sensors;

FIG. 22 illustrates one embodiment of a method for authentication whichuses environmental sensors;

FIG. 23 illustrates one embodiment of a system for adaptively applyingan authentication policy;

FIG. 24 illustrates one embodiment of a method for adaptively applyingan authentication policy; and

FIG. 25 illustrates an exemplary client equipped with a biometricdevice;

FIG. 26A illustrates one embodiment of an authentication engineincluding an eye tracking module and a facial recognition module;

FIG. 26B illustrates one embodiment of an authentication engineincluding a speech recognition module and lip movement analysis modulein combination with an eye tracking module and a facial recognitionmodule;

FIG. 27 illustrates an exemplary heatmap for a Web page employed in oneembodiment of the invention;

FIGS. 28A-B illustrate exemplary text, graphics, photos, videos, blankregions and other content which may be displayed to an end user;

FIGS. 29A-B illustrate embodiments of a method for performingeye-tracking and facial recognition-based authentication as well asvoice recognition and lip movement analysis authentication;

FIG. 30 illustrate different architectural arrangements within whichembodiments of the invention may be implemented.

FIG. 31 illustrates one embodiment of a client architecture including aclient risk assessment agent;

FIG. 32 illustrates exemplary types of client configuration data used bythe client risk assessment agent;

FIG. 33 illustrates one embodiment of a method for performing clientrisk assessment during authentication;

FIG. 34 illustrates one embodiment of a client performing a securetransaction with a local device;

FIG. 35 illustrates one embodiment of a client architecture forperforming a secure transaction with a local device;

FIG. 36 illustrates one embodiment of a method for performing a securetransaction with a local device;

FIG. 37 illustrates one embodiment of a system for user confirmation ofonline transactions;

FIG. 38 illustrates details of one embodiment of a client used in asystem for user confirmation of online transactions;

FIG. 39 illustrates one embodiment of a method for user confirmation ofonline transactions;

FIG. 40 illustrates one embodiment of a system for delegating trust to anew client device from a trusted client device;

FIG. 41 illustrates additional details for one embodiment of a systemfor delegating trust to a new client device from a trusted clientdevice;

FIG. 42 illustrates one embodiment of a method for delegating trust to anew client device from a trusted client device;

FIG. 43 illustrates one embodiment of a system for synchronizing privatedata between devices;

FIG. 44 illustrates one embodiment of a method for adding a device to atrust circle;

FIG. 45 illustrates one embodiment of a method for synchronizing databetween devices;

FIGS. 46A-B illustrate different exemplary architectural arrangementswithin which embodiments of the invention may be implemented.

FIG. 47 is a transaction diagram showing how authentication devices on aclient device may be discovered.

FIG. 48 is a transaction diagram showing how a user may enroll withauthentication devices.

FIG. 49 is a transaction diagram showing how keys may be registered intoauthentication devices.

FIG. 50 is a transaction diagram showing how user authentication may beimplemented within an authentication framework.

FIG. 51 is a transaction diagram showing how details of a transactionmay be verified.

FIG. 52 illustrates a query policy filter implemented in accordance withone embodiment of the invention.

FIG. 53 is a transaction diagram showing how a registration operationwith query policy is implemented in one embodiment of the invention.

FIG. 54 illustrates one embodiment of an architecture for implementingmultiple authentication device processing.

FIGS. 55A-C illustrate three embodiments of the invention for multipleauthentication device processing.

FIG. 56A-B illustrate a transaction diagram for detecting and respondingto a random challenge timeout.

FIG. 57 illustrates an architecture for implementing privacy classes inaccordance with one embodiment of the invention.

FIG. 58 is a transaction diagram for implementing privacy classes inaccordance with one embodiment of the invention.

FIG. 59 illustrates one embodiment of an architecture for usingsignatures to authenticate and a transaction.

FIGS. 60-61 illustrate exemplary embodiments of a computer system forexecuting embodiments of the invention.

FIG. 62 illustrates one embodiment in which metadata is used by arelying party to authenticate a client;

FIG. 63 illustrates a system in accordance with one embodiment of theinvention; and

FIG. 64 illustrates a system on a chip (SoC) in accordance with oneembodiment.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

Described below are embodiments of an apparatus, method, andmachine-readable medium for implementing advanced authenticationtechniques and associated applications. Throughout the description, forthe purposes of explanation, numerous specific details are set forth inorder to provide a thorough understanding of the present invention. Itwill be apparent, however, to one skilled in the art that the presentinvention may be practiced without some of these specific details. Inother instances, well-known structures and devices are not shown or areshown in a block diagram form to avoid obscuring the underlyingprinciples of the present invention.

The embodiments of the invention discussed below involve client deviceswith authentication capabilities such as biometric devices or PIN entry.These devices are sometimes referred to herein as “tokens,”“authentication devices,” or “authenticators.” While certain embodimentsfocus on facial recognition hardware/software (e.g., a camera andassociated software for recognizing a user's face and tracking a user'seye movement), some embodiments may utilize additional biometric devicesincluding, for example, fingerprint sensors, voice recognitionhardware/software (e.g., a microphone and associated software forrecognizing a user's voice), and optical recognition capabilities (e.g.,an optical scanner and associated software for scanning the retina of auser). The authentication capabilities may also include non-biometricdevices such as trusted platform modules (TPMs) and smartcards.

In a mobile biometric implementation, the biometric device may be remotefrom the relying party. As used herein, the term “remote” means that thebiometric sensor is not part of the security boundary of the computer itis communicatively coupled to (e.g., it is not embedded into the samephysical enclosure as the relying party computer). By way of example,the biometric device may be coupled to the relying party via a network(e.g., the Internet, a wireless network link, etc) or via a peripheralinput such as a USB port. Under these conditions, there may be no wayfor the relying party to know if the device is one which is authorizedby the relying party (e.g., one which provides an acceptable level ofauthentication and integrity protection) and/or whether a hacker hascompromised the biometric device. Confidence in the biometric devicedepends on the particular implementation of the device.

The term “local” is used herein to refer to the fact that the user iscompleting a transaction in person, at a particular location such as atan automatic teller machine (ATM) or a point of sale (POS) retailcheckout location. However, as discussed below, the authenticationtechniques employed to authenticate the user may involve non-locationcomponents such as communication over a network with remote serversand/or other data processing devices. Moreover, while specificembodiments are described herein (such as an ATM and retail location) itshould be noted that the underlying principles of the invention may beimplemented within the context of any system in which a transaction isinitiated locally by an end user.

The term “relying party” is sometimes used herein to refer, not merelyto the entity with which a user transaction is attempted (e.g., aWebsite or online service performing user transactions), but also to thesecure transaction servers implemented on behalf of that entity whichmay performed the underlying authentication techniques described herein.The secure transaction servers may be owned and/or under the control ofthe relying party or may be under the control of a third party offeringsecure transaction services to the relying party as part of a businessarrangement.

The term “server” is used herein to refer to software executed on ahardware platform (or across multiple hardware platforms) that receivesrequests over a network from a client, responsively performs one or moreoperations, and transmits a response to the client, typically includingthe results of the operations. The server responds to client requests toprovide, or help to provide, a network “service” to the clients.Significantly, a server is not limited to a single computer (e.g., asingle hardware device for executing the server software) and may, infact, be spread across multiple hardware platforms, potentially atmultiple geographical locations.

A. Non-Intrusive, Privacy Preserving Authentication

One embodiment of the invention uses “normal” authentication techniques(e.g., swiping a finger, entering a code, etc) in order to train theauthentication system to recognize non-intrusive authenticationsituations. In addition, one embodiment returns the authentication stateof the device to the relying party rather than sensitive informationsuch as a Machine ID when authentication is required.

Some embodiments of the invention described below may work completelyfrictionless (i.e. without requiring any explicit user authentication).Behavioral or other techniques may be used to continuously measure anassurance level which indicates the current assurance that an authorizeduser is in possession of the device. The assurance level may becalculated, for example, based on the time which has passed since thelast explicit user authentication (e.g., to SIM card or phone unlockwith PIN or finger swipe). Assuming that amount of time which has passedis within a particular threshold (e.g., 5 seconds, 5 minutes, 1 hour,etc), the device may be considered to be in a “legitimate user state”and the assurance level set to a maximum value (e.g., 100 on anormalized scale of −100 to 100).

Following the legitimate user state, the assurance level may be measuredbased on a combination of the elapsed time since explicit userauthentication and other variables which indicate that the authorizeduser is in possession of the device (e.g., based on non-intrusive inputdetected from device sensors). For example, the biometric gait of theuser may be measured using an accelerometer or other type of sensor incombination with software and/or hardware designed to generate a gait“fingerprint” from the user's normal walking pattern. In addition, thedistance to frequently visited destinations of the legitimate user maybe tracked, stored and subsequently used to determine the assurancelevel. For example, if the user is connecting to a relying party from alocation known to be the user's home or office, then the assurance levelmay be set to a relatively high value, whereas if the device isconnecting from an unknown or distant location, then the assurance levelmay be adjusted to a lower level.

Various other types of non-intrusive measurements may be performed todetermine whether the authorized user is in possession of the deviceincluding, for example, the identity of networks or devices to which theclient device is connected such as Bluetooth devices, near fieldcommunication (NFC) devices, Wifi devices such as routers or accesspoints, smart watches, other computing devices, Nymi bracelets, to namea few. Wifi devices may include the visibility of Wifi networks in reachsuch as a personal Wifi router at home and Wifi-enabled computers usedby colleagues or family members. In addition, certain specificcharacteristics of the client device such as acceleration sensorcharacteristics and digital camera sensor pattern noise, may be used fornon-intrusive measurements. Touch screen gestures of normal userinteraction may also be analyzed and stored as reference data as well asuser typing behavior from normal user interaction. Of course, theforegoing are merely examples; the underlying principles of theinvention are not limited to any set of non-intrusive variables.

The end result is that an assurance level that the legitimate user stillis in the possession of the device may be sent to the relying party inthe authentication response. In one embodiment, the assurance level is“signed” or otherwise authenticated by a key (e.g., a relying-partyspecific key established and attested in a registration phase asdiscussed below). In one embodiment, the assurance level is normalizedto a value between −100 and 100, where −100 means “almost certain it isnot the legitimate user,” 0 means “don't know,” and 100 means “almostcertain that it is the legitimate user.”

In one embodiment, the relying party may ask the client device for usingan additional “normal” authenticator response if the assurance level isnot acceptable for the envisioned transaction. Regardless of what levelof authentication is required, one embodiment does not disclose personaldata to the relying party. Instead, it uses a cryptographic keydedicated to one specific relying party in order to authenticate theauthenticator to the relying party.

One embodiment of an architecture for providing non-intrusiveprivacy-protecting authentication is illustrated in FIG. 2 whichincludes a non-intrusive privacy-preserving authenticator (NIPPA) 210including an assurance calculator 212 for determining the currentassurance level based on input from non-intrusive authenticationmechanisms 230 (e.g., location, gait measurements, etc) and one or moreexplicit user authentication devices 220-221 (e.g., fingerprint sensors,input devices for entering ID codes, etc). In one embodiment, theexplicit user authentication devices 220-221 include the same or similararchitecture as shown in FIG. 1.

In the embodiment illustrated in FIG. 2, the non-intrusiveauthentication 230 includes a location authentication module 231 forperforming location-based authentication using a location sensor(s) 241and historical or user-specified location data stored within auser/location data storage device 245 (e.g., which may be implemented asa file system or database). By way of example and not limitation thelocation sensor 241 may include a GPS device and/or a module fordetecting a current access point or cell tower to which the client 200is connected (which can be used to estimate the device's currentlocation). Any sensor capable of providing data related to a user'slocation may be used. The location authentication module 231 determinesthe effect that the current location of the client device has on theassurance level. For example, if the device is currently at a “home” or“office” location (according to historical or user-specified locationdata 245) then the assurance level may be adjusted upwards; whereas ifdevice is currently at a distant, unknown location, then the assurancelevel may be adjusted downwards. In addition to automatically trainingthe system during the “legitimate user state” (as described herein) inone embodiment, the user is provided with the ability to manuallyspecify certain locations as “trusted” and therefore having a highassurance level (e.g. when the user is at home or at the office). Theresults of the location authentication module 231 are provided to theassurance calculation module 212 to that it may be factored into currentassurance level calculations.

The user behavior authentication module 232 relies on one or more userbehavior sensors 242 to determine the extent to which the current userbehavior is consistent with historical user behavior (stored in user &location data storage 245). For example, the user behavior sensors 242may provide accelerometer measurements that the user behaviorauthentication module may use to determine the gait of the usercurrently in possession of the device 200. It may then compare thesemeasurements with the known gait of the user (collected following priorexplicit user authentications and stored in storage device 245) toarrive at a level of confidence that the legitimate user is inpossession of the device. The results are provided to the assurancecalculation module 212 to that it may be factored into current assurancelevel calculations.

Various other/additional authentication devices 233 may collect datafrom other/additional sensors 243 to perform authenticationcalculations, the results of which are provided to the assurancecalculation module 212 to factor into current assurance levelcalculations.

Although illustrated as separate modules in FIG. 2, the locationauthentication module 231, the user behavior module 232 and any otherauthentication modules 233 may form part of the assurance calculationmodule 212. The underlying principles of the invention may beimplemented using various different logical arrangements of modules.

As illustrated, in one embodiment, the assurance calculation module 212relies on a timer 211 when measuring the amount of time which has passedsince the last explicit user authentication. As discussed in detailbelow, the amount of time which has passed since the last explicit userauthentication may be used to determine whether the device is currentlyin a “legitimate user state” and to adjust the assurance measurementaccordingly.

Once the assurance calculation module 212 has arrived at a currentassurance measurement, it may communicate the measurement to a relyingparty (a cloud service in one embodiment) established via a securecommunication module 213. For example, each authenticator 220-221,including the non-intrusive authenticator 230 may exchange arelying-party-specific and attested key in a registration operation(preceding authentication). The assurance level returned in theauthentication operation may be part of a message signed/encrypted bythe relying-party-specific authentication key. In addition, as discussedbelow, the message may also include nonce (e.g., a random challenge)generated by the relying party.

In one embodiment, secure storage 225 is a secure storage deviceprovided for storing the authentication keys associated with each of theauthenticators and used by the secure communication module 213 toestablish secure communication with the relying party.

As mentioned, in one embodiment, the NIPPA 210 leverages existing(explicit) user authentication techniques (e.g. password based systemlogin, SIM card unlock, etc) to maintain a “legitimate user” statewithin a defined time window after each of such successfulauthentication (up to T1 seconds). The NIPPA 210 may periodicallymeasure user behavior from the various sensors 241-243 and while in the“legitimate user” state, may update its internal reference data vectoraccording to the measurement. While not in the “legitimate user” state,the NIPPA 210 may compute the normalized “distance” to the referencedata vector based on the current measurement. This “distance” isconsidered the certainty that the legitimate user is still in possessionof the authenticator.

When asked to authenticate a user, the NIPPA 210 may check to determinewhether it is in the “legitimate user” state. If so, authentication isconsidered successful and the maximum assurance level (e.g., 100) isreturned. If not in the “legitimate user” state, the NIPPA 210 mayreturn an assurance level computed by the assurance calculation module212 based on the latest measurements. The NIPPA 210 may then combine theassurance level with the time difference td of that measurement tm tocurrent time tc (td=tc−tm). In one embodiment, this is done using thefollowing logic:

(1) if (assurance-level>=0) thenresulting-assurance-level=assurance-level*(max (T0−td, 0)/T0), where T0is the maximum acceptable time difference; and

(2) if (assurance-level<0) thenresulting-assurance-level=assurance-level.

The operation of one embodiment of the invention according to the aboveequations is illustrated in FIG. 3. At time t1 the user performs anexplicit authentication (e.g., swipes a finger, enters a PIN in order tounlock the aSIM card, etc). The time window until t1+T1 is consideredthe “Legitimate User” state. As mentioned, the non-intrusiveauthenticators may be trained within the legitimate user state. Forexample, the user's gait may be measured, and/or locations visited bythe user may be recorded and subsequently used to perform non-intrusiveauthentication.

At time t2 (outside of the legitimate user state) the assurancecalculation module 212 computes the assurance level based on thenon-intrusive authenticator. The result is positive, indicating that itthe device is likely in full control of the legitimate user. After thiscomputation, the assurance level decreases over time (e.g., thelegitimate user may expose the device to non-legitimate people). Forexample, at time t3 the assurance level has dropped significantly fromtime t2. In one embodiment, the non-intrusive assurance level is onlycomputed periodically in order to avoid excessive power and CPUperformance consumption.

At t5 another non-intrusive assurance level computation occurs. Thistime the result is negative, indicating a likelihood that the device isnot under full control of the legitimate user. This negative assurancelevel does not change until another computation is performed based onthe non-intrusive authenticator (e.g., at time t6).

A method in accordance with one embodiment is illustrated in FIGS. 4-5.The method may be implemented within the system architecture such asthat shown in FIG. 2, but is not limited to any particular systemarchitecture.

At 401, an explicit authentication event occurs such as a swipe on afingerprint sensor or the entry of a PIN to unlock the device. A timermay also be started to measure the time which has elapsed from theexplicit authentication event. At 402, the legitimate user state isentered and at 403, various aspects of user behavior may be measured andstored for later reference (e.g., locations, user gait, etc). If anauthentication request occurs during the legitimate user state,determined at 404 (e.g., resulting from a transaction with a relyingparty), then at 405 the maximum assurance level is selected and sent tothe relying party at 420.

At 406, the system exits the legitimate user state (e.g., because thetimer indicates that a specified amount of time has elapsed). At 407,the system periodically measures the user behavior by comparing datafrom sensors against internal reference data stored in operation 403. Byway of example, measurements associated with the gait of the user(collected when in the legitimate user state) may be compared withcurrent gait measurements (collected at 407) and a correlation betweenthe two may be calculated (referred to as the “distance” to thereference data). If an authentication request is received when outsideof the legitimate user state, determined at 408, then at 409 the currentassurance level is calculated based on the distance to the internalreference data and potentially the time from the explicit authenticationevent. The assurance level is then transmitted to the relying party at420.

Turning to FIG. 5, if the assurance level transmitted to the relyingparty is acceptable for the current transaction with the user,determined at 501, then the relying party may send a response to theclient device indicating a successful authentication. If not, then at503, the relying party may send a response to the client indicating thatadditional authentication is needed (e.g., potentially explicit userauthentication if non-intrusive authentication is insufficient).

In an alternate embodiment, the relying party may initially specify anassurance level required for a particular transaction and the systemwill ensure that the required assurance level is met, potentially usingexplicit user authentication if the non-intrusive authenticationtechniques are insufficient. The system may then send the relying partyan indication of successful authentication (rather than an assurancelevel).

As mentioned above, one embodiment of the invention calculates adistance from a set of known user locations to determine the assurancelevel. Referring to FIG. 6, location-based measurements (e.g., such asGPS) may be used to calculate the “distance” function as follows.

In a preprocessing operation, all measured locations (Ln) are assignedto their nearest “regions.” A region is defined as a circle with aradius of r (e.g. 10 meters). The Regions are placed such that a minimalnumber of Regions covers all Ln. All regions which cover fewer than Mlocations are removed from the set of Regions (i.e., as they are notconsidered “frequent” locations of the user).

The “distance” (d) is then determined using distance=(distance of thecurrent location (Lc) to the nearest center of a Region (Rn))/r where ris the radius of a region. This value is smaller or equal to 1 if Lc isinside an existing region and may get very big if Lc is outside. Theassurance level is then calculated using:Assurance-Level=Max(100−50*floor(d), −100), which will be in the rangeof −100 to 100.

In some of the embodiments above, it is assumed that the legitimate useris still in possession of the client device within a specific timewindow following an explicit authentication or if current behavior isvery similar to measured behavior. However, the above embodiments onlyupdate the behavioral reference data inside a specific time window afteran explicit authentication.

As illustrated in FIG. 7, one embodiment of the invention uses anextended time window to update behavioral reference data (i.e., trainthe system) in addition to the standard time window for the legitimateuser state. As a result, the complete time window (including thestandard time window and extended time window) may be defined asfollows: (1) if inside the legitimate user state time window following asuccessful explicit user authentication (i.e. t1 . . . t1+T1), or (2) ifthe returned assurance level would be above a certain threshold T (e.g.,T=90 at, e.g., t2, t4, etc). Setting the threshold to 0 is undesirablebecause it would make it very easy for an attacker to “shift” thebehavioral reference to his favor.

B. Adaptive Authentication Techniques

FIG. 8 illustrates one embodiment of the invention for implementingadaptive authentication techniques. As in the embodiments discussedabove, this embodiment includes one or more non-intrusive authenticationmodules 230 for performing non-intrusive authentication (e.g., based onlocation, sensed user behavior, etc) and one or more explicitauthentication modules 222 for performing explicit user authentication(e.g., requiring a PIN, fingerprint scan, etc). In addition, as in priorembodiments, an assurance calculation module 212 performs assurancecalculations based on, for example, the time since the last explicitauthentication (provided by timer 211) and/or authentication dataprovided by the various authentication modules 230, 222. The securecommunication module 213 establishes secure communication with therelying party 250 (e.g., using a secure encryption key as discussedabove).

In one embodiment, an adaptive authentication module 800 dynamicallyselects among the available non-intrusive authentication techniques andexplicit/intrusive authentication techniques to arrive at an assurancelevel sufficient for a current transaction with the relying party 250.Alternatively, or in addition, an adaptive authentication module 810 onthe relying party 250 may perform the authentication selectiontechniques to arrive at a sufficient assurance level. The underlyingprinciples of the invention remain the same regardless of whether theauthentication selection techniques are implemented on the client device200 (by adaptive authentication module 800) or the relying party 250 (bythe adaptive authentication module 810).

Moreover, the “relying party” 250 illustrated in FIG. 8 may represent atrusted third party server which may implement the authenticationtechniques described herein on behalf of the relying party, and providethe results to the relying party. Thus, while the embodiments of theinvention are described in terms of a “relying party,” the underlyingprinciples of the invention may be implemented using servers outside ofthe perimeter of the network operated by the relying party.

As discussed in greater detail below, in one embodiment, the adaptiveauthentication module 810 includes a risk engine 812 to determine a risklevel based on variables associated with the client device (e.g., basedon current IP address, IP packet round-trip delay times, etc). Inaddition, an assurance level gain analysis component 811 may determinethe amount by which a current assurance level must be increased toarrive at an acceptable assurance level. While these elements areillustrated in FIG. 8 as components of the adaptive authenticationmodule 810 of the relying party, they may also be implemented within theadaptive authentication module 800 of the client while still complyingwith the underlying principles of the invention.

In one embodiment, once a client device 200 connects to the relyingparty 250 (e.g., to initiate a transaction), the risk engine 812determines the risk (or an assurance level) based on all data currentlyavailable. This may include, for example, a geo-location of the clientdevice 200 (e.g., as derived from the IP address, or provided by amobile network operator), the round-trip delay times of packetstransmitted between the client device 200 and relying party 250, thenumber of hops for network packets sent between the client device 200and relying party 250, a specific “user agent” string sent by a useragent executed on the client device 200, to name a few. In oneembodiment, the risk engine 812 then evaluates this data to arrive at animplicit “risk score” (or a preliminary assurance level inverselyrelated to the risk score), which may be used to determine the amount ofadditional assurance required to authenticate the user for a giventransaction.

In one embodiment, based on the implicit risk score, the adaptiveauthentication module on the relying party 810 or the client device 800determines a set of one or more authentication modules 222, 230 with thepotential of increasing the overall assurance level to the requiredlevel for an intended transaction (i.e., when combined with thepreliminary assurance level/implicit risk score). In one embodiment, theassurance level gain analysis module 811 determines the amount of gainrequired and the adaptive authentication module 800, 810 is providedwith an indication of the required assurance level gain as a parameter.The adaptive authentication module 800, 810 then uses this “gain”parameter in order to determine the most convenient set ofauthentication techniques (non-intrusive 230 and/or explicit 222) inorder to achieve (at least) the required gain. The adaptiveauthentication module 800 may include a formal description of theselected set of authentication techniques in a response to the relyingparty 250 (e.g. as an authenticated extension). The relying party 250may then verify whether the resulting overall assurance level meets therequired level.

By way of example, and not limitation, the adaptive authenticationmodule 800 may combine authentication modalities such as devicefingerprinting (e.g. recognizing sensor flaws, or camera sensor patternnoise); environmental information (e.g. GPS based location; locationderived from WIFI networks; existence of wired or wireless connectionsto other gadgets like Nymi, smart watches (pebble), or peripherals likeheadsets, . . . etc.); behavioral data (e.g. the way the user takes thedevice out of a pocket, typing behavior, gait, . . . etc); the timesince the device was in a “trusted” state; and potentially the result ofa new explicit authentication using one or more authenticationmodalities (biometric or otherwise) required to achieve the required(remaining) gain in the assurance level.

The result of the above techniques is that users may opt for the mostconvenient authentication method. In the case of smartphones this maysimply be having access to the phone (see above). Instead of asking theuser to select an authentication method and subsequently, requiring theuser for another explicit authentication, the relying party 250 sends anindication of the required assurance level gain to the adaptiveauthenticator 800, 810 which identifies the least intrusive set ofauthentication techniques. The adaptive authentication module 800, 810does not always require an explicit (intrusive) user authentication(like entering a PIN or swiping a finger), nor is it solely based onnon-intrusive modalities. Instead, the authenticator chooses theappropriate combination of all available modalities (on the client side)such that the required assurance level gain is achieved.

As discussed in detail above, the time since the device was in trustedstate is important as hacking/spoofing modalities may take time. Forexample, if a user loses a phone and someone attempts to hack it, it maytake a day before the fingerprint can be captured from the display, anappropriate rubber finger created and subsequently used to gain access.Consequently, requiring a PIN entry after 24 hours or less since lasttrusted state, would be a sufficient protection against this type ofattack. The next level of attack is one in which the fingerprint iscaptured before having access to the device. These attacks are seen lessfrequently in practice. However, if the relying party 250 needsprotection against such attacks, the adaptive authentication module 800,810 may need to factor in location data or the existence of othergadgets or peripherals in order to accept the biometric modality.

A method in accordance with one embodiment of the invention isillustrated in FIG. 9. As discussed above, the “relying party” as usedherein may be the actual party relying on the accurate authentication ofthe user or may be a third party service authenticating the user onbehalf of the relying party.

At 901, the client device connects to the relying party to perform atransaction (e.g., a transaction to log in to an online account, amonetary transaction, etc). At 902, the relying party analyzes anyavailable data related to the client device to determine a risk valueand the required assurance level gain needed to authenticate the user.For example, the data may indicate that the user is connecting to therelying party from an unknown network location (e.g., a foreign countrynever previously visited by the user) and/or that the number of networkrouting hops or latency between the client and relying party is above athreshold. In such a case, the risk value may be set to a relativelyhigh value (or, conversely, the implicit assurance level may be low).However, if the user has just recently explicitly authenticated to thedevice (e.g., entering a PIN), then this would tend to decrease the risklevel (or raise the implicit assurance level).

Based on the assurance level required to complete the transaction, theassurance level gain may be determined. This may be accomplished, forexample, using an equation such as: Implicit Assurance Level+AssuranceLevel Gain=Required Assurance Level, or Assurance Level Gain=RequiredAssurance Level−Implicit Assurance Level. Various other equations may beused to determine the assurance level gain while still complying withthe underlying principles of the invention.

At 903, an indication of the needed assurance level gain is received. Ifnon-intrusive authentication techniques are sufficient to meet theassurance level gain, determined at 904, then they are used at 905 toauthenticate the user. If not, then at 907, one or more explicitauthentication modalities are implemented, potentially in combinationwith one or more non-intrusive authentication modalities. As mentioned,the modalities may be selected so as to be the least burdensome to theend user (e.g., based on user-specified preferences).

FIG. 10 graphically illustrates how the embodiments of the inventiondescribed above may evaluate the assurance level to determineauthentication modalities. At time t1, the user performs an explicitauthentication (e.g., swiping a finger, entering a PIN, etc). At timet2, the relying party asks for authentication with an assurance levelgain of al4. The non-intrusive authentication modality deliversassurance level al1 which is higher than al4, so there is no need totrigger an explicit authentication.

In contrast, at time t4, the relying party asks for authentication withan assurance level gain of al4. The non-intrusive authenticationmodality would only deliver al5 at that time (as illustrated by thegraph). As a consequence, in this case, the adaptive authenticatormodule will select at least one explicit authentication modality toraise the assurance level from al5 to al4.

One embodiment of the invention employs implicit location-basedauthentication techniques in a manner which protects the end user'sprivacy. As mentioned above, sharing a user's current location (e.g., asprovided by GPS) with relying parties raises significant privacyconcerns. Consequently, users are often reluctant to share such data.

To address these issues, one embodiment of the invention usesgeolocation as a factor when performing implicit user authentication butdoes not disclose the user's location to the relying party. Thisembodiment may be implemented alone or in combination with othernon-intrusive 230 and/or explicit 222 authentication techniquesdescribed above (e.g., as part of a larger, comprehensive authenticationprocess). Instead of transmitting the actual location from the clientdevice, only an assurance level may be transmitted which is based (atleast in part) on the geolocation data, thereby protecting the user'sprivacy.

One embodiment employs the following operations for user/deviceenrollment and registration with a relying party:

1. The user picks and specifies one or more locations where he/sheusually performs authentication with websites. This may be a regionwithin a predefined miles or specific locations (like office, home,transportation route, etc). These selected locations may be storedlocally on the client device and will not be sent to the relying party.These operations may be performed by the location authentication module231 described above.

2. In one embodiment, after enrollment is complete, the client deviceshares a key with the relying party over a secure communication channel(e.g., using secure communication module 213 and other registrationtechniques described herein).

In one embodiment, the following operations are performed duringauthentication:

1. The client device determines its current location using one or moregeolocation techniques (e.g., retrieving the current location using alocation sensor 241 such as an embedded GPS chip).

2. The location authentication module 231 on the client compares thecurrent location with already enrolled locations and produces a scoreindicating the distance (e.g., from 0-100). The assurance calculationmodule 212 may then include the score in its assurance calculations (asdescribed above).

3. the client device generates a signature, signs the score/assurancelevel and sends it to the relying party 250 for final authentication.

C. Composite Authenticators

Some of the embodiments of the invention described herein employclient-side “Authenticators” which encapsulate the followingsecurity-relevant functions:

1. Storing and using a cryptographic attestation key2. Generating, storing and using cryptographic authentication keys3. Local user verification or verification of user presence4. Secure Display of information for the end user

In one embodiment, some of the above functions (e.g., 3 and 4) areoptional. In addition, one embodiment of the invention includesauthenticators which implement the following security objectives:

1. Ensure that the Attestation Key: (a) is only used to attestAuthentication Keys generated and protected by the FIDO Authenticator;and (b) never leaves the FIDO Authenticator boundary.2. If local user verification (sometimes also referred to as “userauthentication”) is claimed to be supported, ensure that: (a) theAuthentication cannot be bypassed/forged by a software application (e.g.malware “entering” a PIN into the authenticator); (b) theconfidentiality of the Authentication data is protected (e.g. malwarecannot access a PIN entered by the user nor the reference data); and (c)User Authentication is required before generating a new authenticationkey and reach time before using such authentication key.

One way to implement an authenticator is to implement all of thecomponents responsible for the above functions in a single module whichis protected by a single protective shell. For example the entireauthenticator may be implemented in a Trusted Application (TA) runningin a Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) (e.g., on a client platformwhich supports trusted execution). In this implementation, the TA issigned ensuring that the Authenticator cannot be modified and the TEEprotects the TA when executed.

In one embodiment of the invention, each authenticator is logicallysubdivided into a plurality of independent components each of whichinclude independent security and authentication capabilities. Forexample, in FIG. 11, rather than implementing all of the componentsresponsible for the above functions in a single module which isprotected by a single shell, the authenticator 1100 is implemented withtwo separate, independent authenticator components: a user verificationcomponent (UVC) 1101 and an authenticator kernel (AK) 1103, each withits own protection logic 1110 and 1112, respectively. In this example,the AK 1103 securely manages attestation key(s) 1104 and authenticationkeys 1105 for the authenticator 1100 and the UVC 1101 manages userverification/presence functions 1106 and secure display functions 1107(specific examples of which are described below and in the co-pendingapplications).

As discussed in detail below, the protection logic 1110, 1112 of eachcomponent may include a component authentication engine forauthenticating every component with one or more other componentsexecuted on the client device (see, e.g., FIG. 13 and associated text).In addition, the protection logic may leverage additionalhardware/software protection mechanisms built in to the client platform(e.g., such as secure elements (SEs), chain of trust technology, trusteduser interface technology, OS based protection mechanisms, etc.).Details associated with each of these embodiments are set forth below.

FIG. 12 illustrates an embodiment of the invention in which multiplelogical authenticators 1201-1202 are built from a set of protectedauthenticator components. In particular, the component building blocksfor logical authenticator 1201 include a user verification component(UVC) 1210 for managing user verification and presence; a displaycomponent (DC) 1212 for ensuring that information displayed to the enduser is exactly the information being confirmed by a transaction (i.e.,“What you See is what you Sign” or WYSIWYS); and an authenticator kernel(AK) component 1214 for securely managing attestation keys 1215 (forattesting the model and/or integrity of the authenticators to a relyingparty as part of a registration process) and authentication keys 1216(for establishing secure communications with relying parties using aunique authentication key for each relying party). The componentbuilding blocks for logical authenticator 1202 includes UVC 1220 formanaging user verification and presence, and an authenticator kernel(AK) component 1214 for securely managing attestation keys 1215 andauthentication keys 1216. Thus, in this example, multiple logicalauthenticators share the same underlying AK component 1214 for managingand protecting keys. In other embodiments of the invention, other typesof components may be shared between multiple authenticators. Asdiscussed above, each of the components is provided with its own,independent protection logic for ensuring that the security objectivesset forth above are met.

An authenticator built from components in this manner is referred to asa “Composite Authenticator” because it is composed of separateindividual components each having their own protective shell. Onebenefit to the composite authenticator approach is that once a componenthas been built for one authenticator, it may be used across multipleauthenticators, thereby allowing new secure authenticators to be builtmore efficiently. For example, as shown in FIG. 12, the sameauthenticator kernel component 1214 is shared between two logicalauthenticators 1201-1202. In addition, each authenticator component maybe implemented in a manner which is optimized for its specific needs. Byway of example, and not limitation, a face recognition basedauthenticator, whose biometric segmentation and matching algorithm maybe too big to implement within a Secure Elements (SEs) or TrustedExecution Environments (TEEs), can still leverage a SE/TEE forprotecting its attestation and user authentication keys. In thisexample, a user verification component (e.g., including segmentation andmatching algorithm) may be run outside of the SE/TEE while theauthentication kernel component may be implemented within the SE/TEE.Similarly, a fingerprint based Authenticator implemented in a TEE couldstill leverage a SE authentication kernel for protecting its attestationand user authentication keys and hence protecting against hardware basedattacks like differential power analysis (DPA), for example.

In one embodiment, the following security measures are implemented toprovide an acceptable level of security for the component authenticatorsdescribed herein (e.g., “acceptable” for meeting the security objectivesspecified above). These security measures will be described withreference to FIG. 13 which shows additional details associated with eachof the components 1210, 1212, 1214 used to implement the authenticator1201 in FIG. 12.

1. Security Measure (SM) 1: In one embodiment, each component (e.g., theuser verification component 1210, display component 1212, orauthentication kernel 1214 shown in FIGS. 12-13) has its own “componentauthentication key” pair (CAK) (e.g., CAK pairs 1304, 1305, and 1306,respectively), which is used to (potentially mutually) register withother components and authenticate messages sent to other components. Asindicated in FIG. 13, each component 1210, 1212, 1214 includes componentauthentication logic 1301, 1302, 1303, respectively, for entering intointer-component authentication transactions using the CAK pairs 1304,1305, 1306, respectively. In one embodiment, the CAK pairs 1304, 1305,1306 are public/private key pairs, although the underlying principles ofthe invention are not limited to such an implementation. In thisimplementation, each of the components is provided with the public keysof those components with which it needs to authenticate. For example,the UVC 1210 knows the public keys (or at least can verify the publickeys) 1321 of the DC and AK; the DC 1212 knows the public keys 1321 ofthe UVC and AK; and the AK 1214 knows the public keys of the DC and UVC.In one embodiment, on startup, a component initially enters into aregistration transaction with the other components with which it mustcommunicate by sharing its public keys with those components. It maythen authenticate with those components using the techniques describedbelow.2. Security Measure (SM) 2: Each component is capable of authenticatingother components it receives messages from by verifying the public CAKof these components. For example, in FIG. 13, the AK 1214 can verify thepublic CAKs of all UVCs 1210 and DCs 1212 it supports (i.e., the publickey in CAK pairs 1304 and 1305). The UVC and DC may also verify the AK1214's public CAK (i.e., in CAK pair 1306) if mutual authentication isimplemented.

FIG. 14 is a transaction diagram illustrating how authentication betweentwo components (the AK 1214 and DC 1212) may be implemented. Attransaction 1400, the component authentication logic 1303 of the AKgenerates a challenge and sends it to the component authentication logic1302 of the DC in transaction 1401. In one embodiment, the challenge isa random number or nonce selected by the component authentication logic1303. In operation 1402, the component authentication logic 1302 of theDC generates a signature over the challenge and potentially additionaldata (e.g. whether user has approved the contents of the transaction)using the private key from its CAK pair 1305. As is understood by thoseof skill in the art, generating a signature may involve implementing ahash function over the challenge using the private key. At transaction1403, the component authentication logic 1302 of the DC sends thesignature back to the component authentication logic 1303 of the AK forverification. The component authentication logic 1303 of the AK nowknows the challenge (e.g., the nonce which it previously generated), thesignature generated using the private key of the DC's CAK pair, and thepublic key of the DC's CAK pair. In transaction 1404, it uses the publickey of the DC's CAK pair to verify the signature using the randomnumber, thereby authenticating the DC. The DC may also verify the AK1214's public key using a similar set of transactions if mutualauthentication is implemented.

3. Security Measure (SM) 3: Depending on the specific implementation,additional security mechanisms may be leveraged to protect thecommunication between the components. These additional securitymechanisms are illustrated in FIG. 13 as supplemental hardware/softwareprotection mechanisms 1310. By way of example, and not limitation, thesehardware/software protection mechanisms 1310 may include thosemechanisms built in to the client platform such as secure elements(SEs), Chain of Trust technology, Trusted User Interface technology, OSlevel access control mechanisms, white box encryption, code obfuscationand runtime integrity protection, to name a few. Using ARM® TrustZone™or similar technology, for example, the operating system may restrictaccess to the AK's application programming interface (API) to onlytrusted programs (e.g., such as legitimate UVCs and DCs). As anotherexample, the operating system may also add the UVC's or DC's packageidentifier to any API call to the AK. It should be noted, however, thatthe underlying principles of the invention are not limited to thespecific hardware/software protection mechanisms discussed above.

By way of example, in one embodiment, the AK 1214 is implemented as anapplet in a Secure Element which provides good protection mechanisms forcryptographic keys but has no user interface. A UVC 1210 may beimplemented as a combination of hardware (e.g., a Fingerprint Sensor)and Trusted Application within a Trusted Execution Environment, bothleveraging the ARM TrustZone or similar technology. A DC 1212 may beimplemented as a Trusted Application using the “Trusted User Interface”capability as defined by the Global Platform. Thus, in this embodiment,when a user swipes a finger on the fingerprint sensor, the trustedapplication is started and verifies the fingerprint data against storedreference data. A score is then sent to the AK 1214, implemented as aSecure Element, which then enters into a series of authenticationtransactions with the relying party 1320 to authenticate the user (e.g.,as described in the co-pending applications).

In addition, a different UVC may be implemented as software componentrunning in a Rich-OS (e.g., Android) using a combination of white boxencryption, code obfuscation and runtime integrity protection. It couldfor example use the integrated video camera in combination with facerecognition software. Another UVC may be implemented either as a TrustedApplication or software running on a Rich-OS using a combination ofwhite box encryption, code obfuscation and runtime integrity protectionand providing a PIN based user verification method.

Thus, the component-based approach described herein is easily adaptableto the requirements of different authentication techniques. For example,some types of authentication such as voice recognition and facialrecognition need to be implemented as a software component using anormal, rich operating system, because of the significant storagerequirements and hardware interface requirements of these authenticationtypes. All of these different types of authentication may be implementedin a secure trusted manner using different UVC components which utilizethe same AK component (which, as discussed, may be implemented as aSecure Element.

Note that with the above approach, the various components logicallycommunicate using cryptographically protected (e.g. signed) messages.This logical communication may still be “facilitated” by some otherentity (e.g., such as the secure transaction logic discussed below).Moreover, in one embodiment, the logical inter-component messagingdescribed herein is transparent to the relying party 1320 which entersinto attestation and authentication transactions directly with theauthenticator kernel 1214 (e.g., using the attestation key 1215 andauthentication keys 1216, respectively). In one embodiment, the AK usesthe attestation key 1215 to validate the model and/or integrity of theauthenticator during registration. For example, the relying party maysend a challenge which the AK signs using the attestation key 1215. Therelying party then uses a corresponding key to validate the signature(e.g., a public key if the attestation key is a private key). Once anauthenticator has registered with a relying party, an authentication key1216 is assigned to that relying party. The AK then uses theauthentication key 1216 associated with a relying party to ensure securecommunications with that relying party following registration.

As an additional security measure, in one embodiment, the componentauthentication logic 1301-1303 of each component may delete its CAK pairif a component compromise is detected.

Two different types of composite authenticators may be implementedutilizing the underlying principles of the invention: “static” compositeauthenticators and “dynamic” composite authenticators.

Static Composite Authenticators

Referring to FIG. 15, in one embodiment, a composite authenticator 1501with the following properties is referred to herein as a “static”composite authenticator:

1. for each authenticator 1501, the Relying Party 1320 has/needs accessto a public attestation key (corresponding to attestation key pair 215,but not the public “Component Authentication Keys” (CAKs) 1304, 1306;and2. for each supported combination of components (e.g., UVC, DC and AK) aspecific Authenticator Attestation ID (AAID) 1505 has been specified inadvance.

Thus, as illustrated in FIG. 15, for a static composite authenticator,each distinct authenticator 1501 is identified by its specific AAID1505. The AK owns one or more attestation key(s) 215 and also selectsone of the predefined AAIDs (and the related attestation key) to be usedwhen performing transactions with the relying party 1320.

Because the CAK pair is never shared with the relying party 1320, it canbe authenticator-specific without impacting the user's privacy. Thisalso means that such keys could be revoked individually if successfulhacks to individual components are detected. Because CAKs are not usedas (publicly visible) “attestation keys,” hacks of components are notconsidered equivalent to hacks of authenticators. In addition, as thecommunication and security mechanisms of the composite authenticator1501 are not visible outside of the authenticator, the implementation ofstatic composite authenticators doesn't affect the specificationsdefining the interactions between the authenticator 1501 and the relyingparty 1320. In one embodiment, each component 1510, 1514 is assigned aunique Component-ID which may be similar to an AAID, but it is onlyrelevant to the AK 1514 (and not to the RP or any other externalentity).

As an additional optimization, in one embodiment, the Online CertificateStatus Protocol (OCSP, RFC2560) may be used as a revocation checkingmethod (e.g., “validation”) for each CAK certificate. More specifically,the AK 1514 may require a sufficiently recent OCSP response for thecertificates of the UVCs or DCs related to the public CAK in order toaccept the incoming message. The AK 1514 may also have one singleAttestation Key used for all AAIDs, or it could optionally have oneattestation key per AAID, or a combination thereof.

In one embodiment, the AK may maintain a static list of AAIDs.Alternatively, it may accept AAIDs received from an external entity(e.g. UVC/DC) if it is part of a signed “AAID-Update” message used toupdate the list. In one embodiment, the AAID-Update message has thefollowing structure: Signature (signing_key,AAID|AK-Component-ID|UVC's/DC's public CAK). The private signing_key maybe owned by the AK vendor. The public signing_key is either directlypart of AK's TrustStore (in a TrustStore implementation) or it can beverified using some certificate stored in the TrustStore (i.e. ischained to such a certificate).

The architecture of the user device 1500 illustrated in FIG. 15 alsoincludes a browser/application 1510 for establishing communication withthe relying party 1320 and secure transaction logic 1520 for enablingcommunication with the authenticator. For example, as illustrated, inone embodiment the secure transaction logic 1520 enables message passingbetween the components 1510, 1514 of each authenticator 1501 by exposingan application programming interface (API) for the various components.Thus, in this embodiment, all communication among components such as theexchange of registration data and messages, occurs via the securetransaction logic 1520. By way of example, the secure transaction logic1520 may be implemented as the “secure transaction service” described inthe co-pending applications (portions of which are set forth below). Thebrowser/application 1510 may be used to establish communication with therelying party 1320 over a network such as the Internet.

Dynamic Composite Authenticators

Referring to FIG. 16, a composite authenticator 1601 with the followingproperties is a “dynamic composite authenticator” if:

1. the “Component Authentication Keys” (CAKs) 1604, 1604 are treated asattestation keys such that the relying party 1320 has and needs therelated public key to verify the attestation messages (e.g., referred toas “Key Registration Data” in the OSTP specification); and2. the relying party 1320 receives multiple AAIDs 1602, 1603 (dependingon the number of components in the authenticator 1601). In oneembodiment, it receives the AAIDs 1602, 1306 of all components 1610,1614 of the authenticator 1601 as part of a registration message sentfrom the AK 1614 via the secure transaction logic 1620 andbrowser/application 1610. While FIG. 16 illustrates only a UVC 1610 andAK 1614, an alternate embodiment (such as shown in FIG. 3) sends the RP1320 an AAID for the AK, DC, and UVC. As mentioned, however, theunderlying principles of the invention are not limited to any particularset of components for implementing an authenticator. In one embodiment,the registration message sent to the RP 1320 also has multiple (chained)signatures, one with the AK's attestation key 1605 and one for each ofthe other components (e.g., the UVC's attestation key 1604 and the DC'sattestation key (not shown)). As mentioned, in one embodiment, the AK1614 includes the other components attestation message(s) in its ownattestation message to the RP 1320 if and only if it trusts thecommunication with the other components.

Thus, a dynamically composed authenticator 1601 is implemented bydynamically combining multiple components (or, said another way,composing two authenticators to get a new authenticator). Because CAKsare relevant to RPs in this implementation, they should not beauthenticator specific in one embodiment to protect the user's privacy.Instead they are either pre-generated/injected as shared keys or theyare authenticated using a direct anonymous attestation (DAA) scheme, acryptographic protocol which enables authentication of a trustedplatform while preserving the user's privacy. As the multiple AAIDs andthe chained attestation messages are visible to the RP, theimplementation of dynamic composite authenticators affects theauthentication specification used between the authenticator 1601 andrelying party 1320.

UVC/DC Assertion Verification

Regardless of whether dynamic or static authenticators are used, in oneembodiment, the UVC 210 and DC 212 send their output data such as userverification result (UVC) and the user's acceptance of the displayedtransaction text (DC) to the AK 214 so that it may be processedaccording to the authentication specification employed between the AK214 and the relying party 1320.

For registration, in an embodiment with static authenticators, the UVC210 and DC 212 may send a key registration message to the AK 214 whichcontains the Component-ID (not the AAID), where the Component-ID is anidentifier similar to the AAID, but only relevant to the AK. In oneembodiment, the user authentication key of the key registration messageis empty and the key registration message is signed by the CAK insteadof the attestation key.

For authentication, in one embodiment, the UVC 210 and DC 212 create amessage signed by the CAK (not the user authentication key).

The following verification steps are implemented by the AK in oneembodiment of the invention:

1. Lookup the internal trust store containing a list of acceptablepublic CAKs. The public CAKs may either be directly stored in theTrustStore, or there may be a public key certificate for each of theCAKs chaining to a Root Certificate in the TrustStore.2. The AK verifies the signature of the incoming data from UVC and/or DCusing the public CAK (e.g., as discussed above with respect to SM1 andSM2).3. Check additional platform-specific protection mechanisms such as thepackage ID of the incoming data or using similar platform-providedprotection mechanisms.4. Check the revocation status of the certificate containing the UVC'sor DC's public CAK. As the AK is only interested in the revocationinformation of a very few number of certificates/keys (i.e. the currentUVC's or DC's), Online Certificate Status Protocol (OCSP) (mentionedabove) may be employed for revocation checking. The AK is not assumed tohave network connection, so the OCSP response is expected as part of theincoming data from the UVC and/or DC.

Optimized Verification Method

A further optimization may be implemented in one embodiment whereasymmetric key operations are too expensive compared to symmetric keyoperations. In such a case, the Key Registration message created by theUVC and/or DC sent to the AK contains a symmetric key SK (e.g. insteadof an empty user authentication key field as mentioned above). Themodified Key Registration Data message generated by the UVC and sent tothe AK may be encrypted using the AK's public CAK (or some other trustedpublic key belonging to the target component). The modified signaturemessage generated by the UVC and/or DC and sent to the AK is notasymmetrically signed using CAK, but instead it is secured using ahash-based message authentication code (HMAC) computed with the SK. TheAK verifies the HMAC using the symmetric key received as part of the KeyRegistration Data message.

D. Location-Aware Authentication Techniques

One embodiment of the invention implements an authentication policy thatallows authentication mechanisms to be selected based on the physicallocation of the client device being used for authentication. Forexample, the client and/or server may make a determination of thephysical location of the client device, and feed that location to apolicy engine that evaluates an ordered set of policy rules. In oneembodiment, these rules specify classes of locations and theauthentication mechanism or mechanisms that must be applied if theclient location matches the location definition in the rule.

As illustrated in FIG. 17, one embodiment of the invention includes aclient device 1700 with an authentication policy engine 1710 forimplementing the location-aware authentication policies describedherein. In particular, this embodiment includes a location classdetermination module 1740 for using the current location of the clientdevice 1700, provided by location sensors 1741 (e.g., a GPS device), toidentify a current location “class.” As discussed in detail below,different location “classes” may be defined comprising knowngeographical points and/or regions. Location class data may becontinuously updated and stored in a persistent location data storagedevice 1745 (e.g., a flash storage or other persistent storage device).The location class determination module 1740 may then compare thecurrent location provided by the sensor(s) 1741 against the defined“classes” to determine a current location class for the client device1700.

In one embodiment, the relying party 1750 specifies the authenticationpolicy to be implemented by the authentication policy engine 1710 foreach transaction (as indicated by the dotted line from the relying partyto the authentication policy engine). Thus, the authentication policymay be uniquely tailored to the authentication requirements of eachrelying party. In addition, the level of authentication required may bedetermined based on the current transaction (as defined by theauthentication policy). For example, a transaction which requires atransfer of a significant amount of money may require a relatively highauthentication assurance threshold, whereas non-monetary transaction mayrequire a relatively lower authentication assurance threshold. Thus, thelocation-aware authentication techniques described herein may besufficient for certain transactions but may be combined with morerigorous authentication techniques for other transactions.

In one embodiment, the location class determination module 1740 providesthe determined class to an authentication policy module 1711 whichimplements a set of rules to identify the authentication techniques 1712to be used for the determined class. By way of example, and notlimitation, FIG. 18 illustrates an exemplary set of rules 1-5 specifyingone or more authentication techniques 1-5 which may be used for eachdefined location class 1-5. Although illustrated as a table datastructure in FIG. 18, the underlying principles of the invention are notlimited to any particular type of data structure for implementing therule set.

Once the authentication policy engine 1710 selects a set ofauthentication techniques 1712, the authentication policy engine 1710may implement the techniques using one or more explicit userauthentication devices 1720-1721 and/or non-intrusive authenticationtechniques 1742-1743 to authenticate the user with a relying party 1750.By way of example, and not limitation, the explicit user authentication1720-1721 may include requiring the user to enter a secret code such asa PIN, fingerprint authentication, voice or facial recognition, andretinal scanning, to name a few.

The non-intrusive authentication techniques 1742-1743 may include userbehavior sensors 1742 which collect data related to user behavior forauthenticating the user. For example, the biometric gait of the user maybe measured using an accelerometer or other type of sensor 1742 incombination with software and/or hardware designed to generate a gait“fingerprint” of the user's normal walking pattern. As discussed below,other sensors 1743 may be used to collect data used for authentication.For example, network data may be collected identifying network/computingdevices within the local proximity of the client device 1700 (e.g.,known peer computers, access points, cell towers, etc).

In one embodiment, secure storage 1725 is a secure storage device usedto store authentication keys associated with each of the authenticationdevices 1720-1721. As discussed below, the authentication keys may beused to establish secure communication channels with the relying party1750 via a secure communication module 1713.

Various different “classes” of locations may be defined consistent withthe underlying principles of the invention. By way of example, and notlimitation, the following classes of locations may be defined:

Class 1: The client is within a given radius of a specified location. Inthis class, the associated authentication policy is applied if thecurrent client location is within an area bounded by a circle of a givenradius, centered at a specified latitude and longitude.

Class 2: The client is within a specified boundary region. In thisclass, the associated authentication policy is applied if the client islocated within an area bounded by a polygon defined by an ordered set oflatitude and longitude pairs (e.g., a closed polygon).

Class 3: The client is outside a specified boundary. In this class, theassociated authentication policy is applied if the client is locatedoutside an area bounded by a polygon defined by an ordered set oflatitude and longitude pairs (e.g., a closed polygon).

In one embodiment, additional classes are defined using Booleancombinations of the classes and policy rules defined above. For example,the Boolean operations AND, OR, NOT, and the nesting of Booleanoperations allow the expression of complex conditions. Such policiescould be used, for example, to implement a policy that applies when theclient is located in one of a variety of facilities owned by a company.

Various different mechanisms may be used to determine the currentphysical location of the client (represented generally in FIG. 17 aslocation sensors 1741), including, but not limited to the following:

GPS: Embedded GPS sensors can directly provide details on the locationof the client. New emerging standards seek to add authentication of thelocation provided as a capability that address this shortcoming incurrent GPS solutions.

Geo-IP Lookup: Reverse lookups of the client's IP address can be used todetermine a coarse approximation of the client's location. However, thetrustworthiness of the location obtained through this method requiresthe IP address to be cross-checked against blacklists of knowncompromised hosts, anonymizing proxy providers, or similar solutionsdesigned to obfuscate the source IP address of the host.

Cell Tower Triangulation: Integration between the client, the server,and wireless carrier infrastructure could allow the client and server toperform high resolution determination of physical location usingcellular signal strength triangulation.

Wi-Fi Access Point Triangulation: A higher resolution method todetermine physical location is to triangulate the signal strength ofnearby Wifi access points with known physical locations. This method isparticularly effective in determining the location of a device withinfacilities.

Location Displacement Inference: A device's exact location may beunknown, but a statistical probability of location may be used as anapproximation for the purpose of evaluating policy. This may becalculated by noting the change in the device's position relative to astarting point with a known location; the user's device may have, in thepast, had a known starting point, and in the interim has moved a knownor estimate distance and bearing, allowing an approximate location to becalculated. Possible methods to calculate the displacement from thestarting point may include inferring distance traveled usingmeasurements gathered from an accelerometer (i.e. using theaccelerometer to measure how far the user walked based on gaitmeasurement), changes in signal strength from a known, stationary set ofsignal sources, and other methods.

FIG. 19 illustrates one embodiment of a method for implementing alocation-aware authentication policy. The method may be executed withinthe context of the system architecture shown in FIGS. 17-18 but is notlimited to any particular system architecture.

At 1901 the client's location is identified using one or more availabletechniques (e.g., GPS, triangulation, peer/network device detection,etc). At 1902, one or more location classes (and potentially Booleancombinations of classes) are identified for the current location basedon an existing set of policy rules. At 1903, one or more authenticationtechniques are identified according to the location class(es). Forexample, if the client device is currently at a location known to be theuser's home or office or within a defined radius of another trustedlocation, then minimal (or no) authentication may be required. Bycontrast, if the client device is currently at an unknown locationand/or a location known to be untrusted, then more rigorousauthentication may be required (e.g., biometric authentication such as afingerprint scan, PIN entry, etc). At 1904, the authenticationtechniques are employed and if authentication is successful, determinedat 1905, then the transaction requiring authentication is authorized at1906.

As mentioned above, the level of authentication required may bedetermined based on the current transaction. For example, a transactionwhich requires a transfer of a significant amount of money may require arelatively high authentication assurance threshold, whereas non-monetarytransaction may require a relatively lower authentication assurancethreshold. Thus, the location-aware authentication techniques describedherein may be sufficient for certain transactions but may be combinedwith more rigorous authentication techniques for other transactions.

If authentication is not successful, then the transaction is blocked at1907. At this stage, the transaction may be permanently blocked oradditional authentication steps may be requested. For example, if theuser entered an incorrect PIN, the user may be asked to re-enter the PINand/or perform biometric authentication.

The embodiments of the invention described herein provide numerousbenefits to authentication systems. For example, the describedembodiments may be used to efficiently block access from unauthorizedlocations, reducing unauthorized access by limiting the location fromwhich users are permitted to attempt authentication (e.g., as defined bylocation classes). In addition, the embodiments of the invention mayselectively require stronger authentication to respond tolocation-specific risks. For example, the relying party can minimize theinconvenience of authentication when a user is entering into atransaction from a known location, while retaining the ability torequire stronger authentication when the user/client is connecting froman unknown or unexpected location. Moreover, the embodiments of theinvention enable location-aware access to information. Alternatively, alocation-centric policy may be used by a relying party to provide a userwith additional access to location-specific information. By way ofexample, and not limitation, a user located in a Walmart may be grantedaccess to special offers from Amazon.com when the user logs into theirAmazon.com account on their mobile phone.

As mentioned above, the location of the client device 1700 may bedetermined using a variety of different techniques. In one particularembodiment, the definition of a “location” may not be tied to a set ofphysical coordinates (as with GPS), but instead be prescribed by thepresence of a set of peer devices or other types of network devices. Forexample, when at work, the client's wireless network adapters (e.g.,Wifi adapter, Bluetooth adapter, LTE adapter, etc) may “see” a set ofpeer network devices (e.g., other computers, mobile phones, tablets,etc) and network infrastructure devices (e.g., Wifi access points, celltowers, etc) on a consistent basis. Thus, the presence of these devicesmay be used for authentication when the user is at work. Other locationsmay be defined by the presence of devices in a similar manner such aswhen the user is at home.

For example, using the techniques described herein, a location may bedefined as “with my work colleagues” or “at work” where the presence ofa set of peer devices known to be owned by the user's work colleaguesmay be used as a proxy for the risk that needs to be mitigated byauthentication policy. For example, if a user is surrounded by a set ofknown peer devices or other types of network devices, then the user maybe deemed to be less of a risk than if no known devices are detected.

FIG. 20 illustrates one embodiment in which a “location” is defined by aset of peer devices and other network devices. In the illustratedexample, the client device 1700 “sees” two different peer devices2005-2006 (e.g., client computers, mobile phones, tablets, etc); twodifferent wireless access points 2010-2011; and two different celltowers 2020-2021. As used herein, the client device 1700 may “see”without formally establishing a connection with each of the otherdevices. For example, the client may see a variety of peer devicesconnected to the work LAN and/or may see the wireless signals generatedby those devices regardless of whether the client connects to thosedevices. Similarly, the client device 1700 may see the basic service setidentification (BSSID) for a variety of different Wifi access points(e.g., Wifi from nearby hotels, coffee shops, work Wifi access points).The client device 1700 may also see a variety of different cell towers2020-2021, potentially even those operated by different cell carriers.The presence of these devices may be used to define a location“fingerprint” for the user's work location.

As illustrated, device proximity detection logic 2001 on the clientdevice 1700 may capture data related to visible devices and compare theresults against historical device proximity data 2004. The historicaldevice proximity data 2004 may be generated over time and/or through atraining process. For example, in one embodiment, the user may specifywhen he/she is at work, at home, or at other locations (either manually,or when prompted to do so by the client 1700). In response, the deviceproximity detection logic 2001 may detect the devices in the vicinityand persistently store the results as historical device proximity data2004. When the user subsequently returns to the location, the deviceproximity detection logic 2001 may compare the devices that it currently“sees” against the devices stored as historical proximity data 2004 togenerate a correlation between the two. In general, the stronger thecorrelation, the more likely it is that the client is at the specifiedlocation. Over time, devices which are seen regularly may be prioritizedabove other devices in the historical device proximity data 2004 (e.g.,because these devices tend to provide a more accurate correlation withthe user's work location).

In one embodiment, the authentication policy engine 1710 may use thecorrelation results provided by the device proximity detection logic2001 to determine the level of authentication required by the user foreach relying party 1750. For example, if a high correlation exists(i.e., above a specified threshold), then the authentication policyengine may not require explicit authentication by the end user. Bycontrast, if there is a low correlation between the user's currentlocation and the historical device proximity data 2004 (i.e., below aspecified threshold), then the authentication policy engine 1710 mayrequire more rigorous authentication (e.g., a biometric authenticationsuch as a fingerprint scan and/or requesting PIN entry).

In one embodiment, the device proximity detection logic 2001 identifiesthe set of other devices that are in the client's proximity which havebeen authenticated. For example, if several of a user's colleagues havealready authenticated successfully, then there may be less riskassociated with allowing the user to access certain data with a lessreliable authenticator, simply because the user is operating in thepresence of his/her peers. In this embodiment, peer-to-peercommunication over standards such as 802.11n may be used to collectauthentication tokens from peers that can be used to prove those peershave already authenticated.

In another embodiment, the device proximity detection logic 2001 mayalso detect a previously authenticated device that is paired with theuser's client (e.g., such as the user's mobile phone or tablet). Thepresence of another authenticated device that is used by the same userthat is attempting to authenticate may be used as an input to theauthentication decision, particularly when accessing the sameapplication.

In one embodiment, the historical device proximity data 2004 iscollected and shared across multiple devices, and may be stored andmaintained on an intermediate authentication service. For example, ahistory of groups of peers and network devices in each location may betracked and stored in a central database accessible to the deviceproximity detection logic 2001 on each device. This database may then beused as an input to determine the risk of an attempted authenticationfrom a particular location.

E. Embodiments for Confirming Location Using Supplemental Sensor and/orLocation Data

As mentioned above, one embodiment of the invention leverages data fromadditional sensors 1743 from the mobile device to provide supplementalinputs to the risk calculation used for authentication. Thesesupplemental inputs may provide additional levels of assurance that canhelp to either confirm or refute claims of the location of the enduser's device.

As illustrated in FIG. 21 the additional sensors 1743 which providesupplemental assurance of the device's location may include temperaturesensors 2101, humidity sensors 2102 and pressure sensors 2103 (e.g.,barometric or altimeter pressure sensors). In one embodiment, thesensors provide temperature, humidity, and pressure readings,respectively, which are used by a supplemental data correlation module2140 of the authentication policy engine 1710 to correlate againstsupplemental data 2110 known about the location provided by the locationsensor(s) 1741 (or the location derived using the various othertechniques described herein). The results of the correlation are thenused by the authentication policy module 1711 to select one or moreauthentication techniques 1712 for a given transaction. As indicated inFIG. 21, the supplemental location data 2110 may include data collectedfrom external sources (e.g., the Internet or other mobile devices) andlocal data sources (e.g., historical data collected during periods whenthe device is known to be in possession of the legitimate user).

The supplemental data correlation module 2140 may use the data providedby the additional sensors 1743 in a variety of different ways tocorrelate against the supplemental location data 2110. For example, inone embodiment, the supplemental location data 2110 includes currentlocal meteorological conditions at the location provided by the locationsensor(s) 1741. By comparing the humidity, temperature, or barometricpressure gathered from the additional sensors 1743 against real-timelocal weather data 2110, the supplemental data correlation module 2140identifies cases where the sensor data is inconsistent with localconditions. For example, if the client device's GPS reading indicatesthat the device is outside, yet the temperature, humidity, or barometricpressure are not consistent with the local weather conditions, then thesupplemental data correlation module 2140 may generate a low correlationscore and the location may be deemed less trustworthy. Consequently, theauthentication policy module 1711 may require more rigorousauthentication techniques 1712 (e.g., fingerprint, PIN entry, etc) toapprove a transaction.

As another example, by comparing the altitude provided by an altimeterpressure sensor 2103 against the known geographical or network topologyof the claimed location (provided with the supplemental location data2110), the supplemental data correlation module 2140 may identifydiscrepancies that signal the claimed location is not genuine. Forexample, if a reverse IP lookup of the user's claimed locationidentifies them as being in the Andes Mountains, but altimeter data fromthe device indicates the device is at sea level, then the supplementaldata correlation module 2140 may generate a low correlation score andthe location may be deemed less trustworthy. As a result of the lowcorrelation score, the authentication policy module 1711 may attempt tomitigate the higher risk with stronger authentication for thetransaction.

In one embodiment, the supplemental data correlation module 2140compares data gathered from sensors 1743 on the user's device againstmultiple other end users in the immediate area to identify anomaliesthat suggest the user is not operating in the same physical location asthose known users. For example, if a set of authenticated users areidentified who are operating the same physical area, and all of thoseusers' devices note that the local temperature in the area is 10° C.,the supplemental data correlation module 2140 may generate a lowcorrelation score for an end user whose temperature sensor 2101indicates the local temperature is 20° C. As a result, theauthentication policy 1711 may require more rigorous authenticationtechniques 1712.

As yet another example, the supplemental data correlation module 2140may compare current readings against historical data for a particularuser. For example, as mentioned, sensor data may be analyzed duringperiods of time when the user is known to be in possession of the device1700 (e.g., for a time period following an explicit authentication). Thesupplemental data correlation module 2140 may then look fordiscontinuities in the local data to identify suspicious behavior. Forexample, if the user's ambient temperature normally floats between 10°C. and 20° C. and it is currently at 30° C., this may indicate the useris not in a typical location, thereby generating a low correlation andcausing the authentication policy module 1711 to require an additionallevel of scrutiny for a transaction.

The supplemental data correlation module 2140 may perform variousdifferent types of correlations between sensor data and supplementallocation data while still complying with the underlying principles ofthe invention. For example, various known correlation mechanisms may beused to determine the statistical relationship between the two sets ofdata. In one embodiment, the correlation score provided to theauthentication policy engine 1711 comprises a normalized value (e.g.,between 0-1) indicating a level of correlation. In one embodiment,various threshold levels may be set for detected differences between thesensors 1743 and supplemental location data 2110. For example, if thetemperature sensor 2101 measures a temperature of more than 3 degreesoff of the current temperature (gathered from other devices or theInternet), then a first threshold may be triggered (resulting in alowering of the correlation score). Each additional 3 degrees off fromthe current temperature may then result in a new threshold being met(resulting in a corresponding lowering of the correlation score). Itshould be noted, however, that these are merely examples of oneembodiment of the invention; the underlying principles of the inventionare not limited to any particular manner of performing a correlation.

A method in accordance with one embodiment of the invention isillustrated in FIG. 22. At 2201, the current location being reported bythe client device (e.g., via the GPS module on the device) is read. At2202, supplemental location data is collected for the reported locationalong with sensor data from the client device. As mentioned above, thesupplemental location data may be collected locally or remotely (e.g.,from other clients and/or servers on the Internet) and may include datasuch as the current temperature, pressure and/or humidity for thereported location. The sensor data may be provided by temperaturesensors, barometric or altimeter pressure sensors, and/or humiditysensors.

At 2203, a correlation is performed between the supplemental locationdata and the sensor data provided by the device sensors. In oneembodiment, a relatively higher correlation will result in a relativelyhigher correlation score at 2204 whereas lower correlations will resultin relatively lower correlation scores. As mentioned, in one embodiment,the correlation score is a normalized value (e.g., between 0-1)indicating the similarity between the sensor readings and supplementaldata.

At 2205 one or more authentication techniques are selected based (atleast in part) on the correlation score. For example, if a relativelylow correlation score is provided, then more rigorous authenticationtechniques may be selected whereas if a relatively high correlationexists then less rigorous authentication techniques may be selected(potentially those which do not require explicit authentication by theend user).

If the user successfully authenticates using the selected techniques,determined at 2206, then the transaction is allowed to proceed at 2207.If not, then the transaction is blocked at 2208.

Numerous benefits are realized from the above embodiments. For example,these embodiments provide an additional level of assurance for locationdata gather from other sources: Allows the organization to supplementlocation data gathered from other sources (IP, GPS, etc) in order togain additional assurance that the location is authentic. In addition,the embodiments of the invention may block a transaction from anunauthorized location, reducing unauthorized access by limiting thelocation from which users can even attempt authentication. Moreover,these embodiments may force stronger authentication to respond tolocation-specific risks (e.g., the relying party can minimize theinconvenience of authentication when the user is accessing informationfrom a known location, while retaining the ability to require strongerauthentication when the user/client is accessing from an unknown orunexpected location, or a location whose veracity can't be sufficientlyqualified using multiple inputs).

F. Adaptive Application of Authentication Policy Based on ClientAuthentication Capabilities

As illustrated in FIG. 23, one embodiment of the invention includes anadaptive authentication policy engine 2345 that allows anorganization—e.g., a relying party with secure transaction services 1750(hereinafter simply referred to as the “relying party”)—to specify whichtypes of authentication are appropriate for a particular class ofinteractions. As illustrated, the adaptive authentication policy engine2345 may be implemented as a module within the authentication engine2311 executed at the relying party 1750. In this embodiment, theadaptive authentication policy engine 2345 executes in accordance with apolicy database 2325 containing data for existing authentication devices2329, authentication device classes 2328, interaction classes 2327, andauthentication rules 2326.

In one embodiment, the authentication device data 2329 comprises dataassociated with each of the explicit user authentication devices1720-1721 known to be used with clients 1700. For example, the policydatabase 2325 may include an entry for a “Validity Model 123”fingerprint sensor along with technical details related to this sensorsuch as the manner in which the sensor stores sensitive data (e.g., incryptographically secure hardware, EAL 3 certification, etc) and thefalse acceptance rate (indicating how reliable the sensor is whengenerating a user authentication result).

In one embodiment, the authentication device classes 2328 specifylogical groupings of authentication devices 2329 based on thecapabilities of those devices. For example, one particularauthentication device class 2328 may be defined for (1) fingerprintsensors (2) that store sensitive data in cryptographically securehardware that has been EAL 3 certified, and (3) that use a biometricmatching process with a false acceptance rate less than 1 in 1000.Another device class 2328 may be (1) facial recognition devices (2)which do not store sensitive data in cryptographically secure hardware,and (3) that use a biometric matching process with a false acceptancerate less than 1 in 2000. Thus, a fingerprint sensor or facialrecognition implementation which meets the above criteria will be addedto the appropriate authentication device class(es) 2328.

Various individual attributes may be used to define authenticationdevice classes, such as the type of authentication factor (fingerprint,PIN, face, for example), the level of security assurance of thehardware, the location of storage of secrets, the location wherecryptographic operations are performed by the authenticator (e.g., in asecure chip or Secure Enclosure), and a variety of other attributes.Another set of attributes which may be used are related to the locationon the client where the “matching” operations are performed. Forexample, a fingerprint sensor may implement the capture and storage offingerprint templates in a secure storage on the fingerprint sensoritself, and perform all validation against those templates within thefingerprint sensor hardware itself, resulting in a highly secureenvironment. Alternatively, the fingerprint sensor may simply be aperipheral that captures images of a fingerprint, but uses software onthe main CPU to perform all capture, storage, and comparison operations,resulting in a less secure environment. Various other attributesassociated with the “matching” implementation may also be used to definethe authentication device classes (e.g., whether the matching is (or isnot) performed in a secure element, trusted execution environment(TEE)), or other form of secure execution environment).

Of course, these are merely examples for illustrating the concept ofauthentication device classes. Various additional authentication deviceclasses may be specified while still complying with the underlyingprinciples. Moreover, it should be noted that, depending on how theauthentication device classes are defined, a single authenticationdevice may be categorized into multiple device classes.

In one embodiment, the policy database 2325 may be updated periodicallyto include data for new authentication devices 2329 as they come tomarket as well as new authentication device classes 2328, potentiallycontaining new classes into which the new authentication devices 2329may be classified. The updates may be performed by the relying partyand/or by a third party responsible for providing the updates for therelying party (e.g., a third party who sells the secure transactionserver platforms used by the relying party).

In one embodiment, interaction classes 2327 are defined based on theparticular transactions offered by the relying party 2325. For example,if the relying party is a financial institution, then interactions maybe categorized according to the monetary value of the transaction. A“high value interaction” may be defined as one in which an amount of$5000 or more is involved (e.g., transferred, withdrawn, etc); a “mediumvalue interaction” may be defined as one in which an amount between $500and $4999 is involved; and a “low value transaction” may be defined asone in which an amount of $499 or less is involved.

In addition to the amount of money involved, interaction classes may bedefined based on the sensitivity of the data involved. For example,transactions disclosing a user's confidential or otherwise private datamay be classified as “confidential disclosure interactions” whereasthose which do not disclose such data may be defined as“non-confidential disclosure interactions.” Various other types ofinteractions may be defined using different variables and a variety ofminimum, maximum, and intermediate levels.

Finally, a set of authentication rules 2326 may be defined which involvethe authentication devices 2329, authentication device classes 2327,and/or interaction classes 2327. By way of example, and not limitation,a particular authentication rule may specify that for “high valuetransactions” (as specified by an interaction class 2327) onlyfingerprint sensors that store sensitive data in cryptographicallysecure hardware that has been EAL 3 certified, and that use a biometricmatching process with a false acceptance rate less than 1 in 1000 (asspecified as an authentication device class 2328) may be used. If afingerprint device is not available, the authentication rule may defineother authentication parameters that are acceptable. For example, theuser may be required to enter a PIN or password and also to answer aseries of personal questions (e.g., previously provided by the user tothe relying party). Any of the above individual attributes specified forauthentication devices and/or authentication device classes may be usedto define the rules, such as the type of authentication factor(fingerprint, PIN, face, for example), the level of security assuranceof the hardware, the location of storage of secrets, the location wherecryptographic operations are performed by the authenticator.

Alternatively, or in addition, a rule may specify that certainattributes can take on any value, as long as the other values aresufficient. For example, the relying party may specify that afingerprint device must be used which stores its seed in hardware andperforms computations in hardware, but does not care about the assurancelevel of the hardware (as defined by an authentication device class 2328containing a list of authentication devices meeting these parameters).

Moreover, in one embodiment, a rule may simply specify that onlyspecific authentication devices 2329 can be used for authenticating aparticular type of interaction. For example, the organization canspecify that only a “Validity Model 123 fingerprint sensor” isacceptable.

In addition, a rule or set of rules may be used to create ordered,ranked combinations of authentication policies for an interaction. Forexample, the rules may specify combinations of policies for individualauthentication policies, allowing the creation of rich policies thataccurate reflect the authentication preferences of the relying party.This would allow, for example, the relying party to specify thatfingerprint sensors are preferred, but if none is available, then eithertrusted platform module (TPM)-based authentication or face recognitionare equally preferable as the next best alternatives (e.g., in aprioritized order).

In one embodiment, the adaptive authentication policy engine 2345implements the authentication rules 2326, relying on the interactionclasses 2327, authentication device classes 2328, and/or authenticationdevice data 2329, when determining whether to permit a transaction withthe client 1700. For example, in response to the user of the clientdevice 1700 attempting to enter into a transaction with the relyingparty website or other online service 2346, the adaptive authenticationpolicy engine 2345 may identify a set of one or more interaction classes2327 and associated authentication rules 2326 which are applicable. Itmay then apply these rules via communication with an adaptiveauthentication policy module 2350 on the client device 1700 (illustratedin FIG. 23 as a component within the client's authentication engine2310). The adaptive authentication policy module 2350 may then identifya set of one or more authentication techniques 2312 to comply with thespecified authentication policy. For example, if a prioritized set ofauthentication techniques are specified by the adaptive authenticationpolicy engine 2345 of the relying party, then the adaptiveauthentication policy module 2350 may select the highest priorityauthentication technique which is available on the client 1700.

The results of the authentication techniques 2312 are provided to anassurance calculation module 2340 which generates an assurance levelthat the current user is the legitimate user. In one embodiment, if theassurance level is sufficiently high, then the client will communicatethe results of the successful authentication to the authenticationengine 2311 of the relying party, which will then permit thetransaction.

In one embodiment, data from the client device sensors 1741-1743 mayalso be used by the assurance calculation module 2340 to generate theassurance level. For example, the location sensor (e.g., a GPS device)may indicate a current location for the client device 1700. If theclient device is in an expected location (e.g., home or work), then theassurance calculation module 2340 may use this information to increasethe assurance level. By contrast, if the client device 1700 is in anunexpected location (e.g., a foreign country not previously visited bythe user), then the assurance calculation module 2340 may use thisinformation to lower the assurance level (thereby requiring morerigorous explicit user authentication to reach an acceptable assurancelevel). As discussed above, various additional sensor data such astemperature, humidity, accelerometer data, etc, may be integrated intothe assurance level calculation.

The system illustrated in FIG. 23 may operate differently based onspecificity with which the client authentication capabilities and otherinformation are communicated to the relying party. For example, in oneembodiment, the specific models of each of the explicit userauthentication devices 1720-1721 and specific details of the securityhardware/software and sensors 1741-1743 on the client device 1700 may becommunicated to the relying party 1750. As such, in this embodiment, theadaptive authentication policy engine 2345 may specifically identify thedesired mode(s) of authentication, based on the authentication rulesimplemented for the current transaction and the risk associated with theclient. For example, the adaptive authentication policy module 2345 mayrequest authentication via the “Validity Model 123” fingerprint sensorinstalled on the client for a given transaction.

In another embodiment, only a generic description of the authenticationcapabilities of the client device 1700 may be provided to protect theuser's privacy. For example, the client device may communicate that ithas a fingerprint sensor that stores sensitive data in acryptographically secure hardware that has been EAL 3 certified and/orthat uses a biometric matching process with a false acceptance rate lessthan 1 in N. It may specify similar generic information related to thecapabilities and specifications of other authentication devices, withoutdisclosing the specific models of those devices. The adaptiveauthentication policy engine 2345 may then use this general informationto categorize the authentication devices in applicable authenticationdevice classes 2338 within the database 2325. In response to a requestto perform a transaction, the adaptive authentication policy module 2345may then instruct the client device 1700 to use a particularauthentication device if its class is sufficient to complete thetransaction.

In yet another embodiment, the client device 1700 does not communicateany data related to its authentication capabilities to the relyingparty. Rather, in this embodiment, the adaptive authentication policymodule 2345 communicates the level of authentication required and theadaptive authentication policy module 2350 on the client selects one ormore authentication techniques which meet that level of authentication.For example, the adaptive authentication policy module 2345 maycommunicate that the current transaction is classified as a “high valuetransaction” (as specified by an interaction class 2327) for which onlycertain classes of authentication devices may be used. As mentioned, itmay also communicate the authentication classes in a prioritized manner.Based on this information, the adaptive authentication policy module2350 on the client may then select one or more authentication techniques2312 required for the current transaction.

As indicated in FIG. 23, the client device 1700 may include its ownpolicy database(s) 2390 to store/cache policy data for each relyingparty. The policy database 2390 may comprise a subset of the data storedwithin the policy database 2325 of the relying party. In one embodiment,a different set of policy data is stored in the database 2390 for eachrelying party (reflecting the different authentication policies of eachrelying party). In these embodiments, the mere indication of aparticular category of transaction (e.g., a “high value transaction,”“low value transaction”, etc) may be sufficient information for theadaptive authentication policy module 2350 on the client device 1700 toselect the necessary authentication techniques 2312 (i.e., because therules associated with the various transaction types are available withinthe local policy database 2390). As such, the adaptive authenticationpolicy module 2345 may simply indicate the interaction class of thecurrent transaction, which the adaptive authentication policy module2350 uses to identify the authentication techniques 2312 based on therules associated with that interaction class.

A method for performing adaptive authentication based on client devicecapabilities is illustrated in FIG. 24. The method may be implemented onthe system illustrated in FIG. 23, but is not limited to any particularsystem architecture.

At 2401 a client attempts to perform a transaction with a relying party.By way of example, and not limitation, the client may enter paymentinformation for an online purchase or attempt to transfer funds betweenbank accounts. At 2402, the transaction is categorized. For example, asdiscussed above, the transaction may be associated with a particularinteraction class based on variables such as the amount of moneyinvolved or the sensitivity of information involved.

At 2403, one or more rules associated with the category of transactionare identified. Returning to the above example, if the transaction iscategorized as a “high value transaction” then a rule associated withthis transaction type may be selected. At 2404, the rule(s) associatedwith the transaction type are executed and, as discussed above,information is sent to the client indicating the authenticationrequirements to complete the transaction. As discussed above, this mayinvolve identifying specific authentication devices, identifying classesof authentication devices, or merely indicating the particular rulewhich needs to be implemented (e.g., if the client maintains localcopies of the rules).

In any case, at 2405 a set of one or more authentication techniques areselected based on the requirements specified via the rule(s) and theauthentication capabilities of the client. If authentication issuccessful, determined at 2406, then the transaction is permitted at2407. If not, then the transaction is blocked at 2408 (or additionalauthentication is requested from the user).

There are numerous benefits realized from the embodiments of theinvention described herein. For example, these embodiments reduce theeffort required to integrate authentication capabilities at the relyingparty. For example, instead of writing code to codify an authenticationpolicy, rules can be configured through a simple graphical userinterface. All the relying party needs to do to integrate is define apolicy for a class of interactions (for example: “Large MoneyTransfers”) and have the integration code use that policy identifierwhen interacting with the policy engine to determine the correctauthentication mechanism to leverage.

Moreover, these embodiments simplify authentication policyadministration. By expressing the authentication policy outside of code,this approach allows the organization to easily update theirauthentication policies without requiring code changes. Changes toreflect new interpretations of regulatory mandates, or respond toattacks on existing authentication mechanisms become a simple change inthe policy, and can be effected quickly.

Finally, these embodiments allow for future refinement of authenticationtechniques. As new authentication devices become available, anorganization can evaluate its appropriateness to addressing new oremerging risks. Integrating a newly available authentication device onlyrequires adding the authentication device to a policy; no new code hasto be written to deploy the new capability immediately.

G. System and Method for Eye Tracking During Authentication

In general, authentication techniques are robust against spoofing if (a)secret information is used for authentication or (b) it is hard toproduce a fake input. Most systems today rely on password-basedauthentication. Passwords are easy to reproduce, so they need to be keptsecure. Consequently, password attacks typically focus on gaining accessto a user's password. Recent attacks have demonstrated the vulnerabilityof servers on which the passwords are stored for verification.

In contrast to password-based authentication, when using biometrics forauthentication, the biometric information typically is public. Forexample, a fingerprint can be retrieved from (almost) any object touchedby the user. Similarly, a user's face is typically not hidden and hencecan be seen and captured by anyone and is often published on socialnetworks.

In the real world, we can rely on our own recognition abilities when wesee a person, because it is hard to “produce” another person having thesame biometric characteristics. For example, it is still hard to“produce” another person having the same face and mannerisms. This iswhy governments include pictures of the face in passports, ID cards,drivers licenses and other documents. In the virtual world, however, wedon't have to “produce” another person with the same face in order tospoof the system, but only something that the computer would recognizesuch as a picture of the face. In other words, “[t]he moral is thatbiometrics work well only if the verifier can verify two things: one,that the biometric came from the person at the time of verification, andtwo, that the biometric matches the master biometric on file” (seeReference 1 from the list of references provided prior to the claims ofthe present specification).

In the past, research on automatic face recognition has focused onreliable recognition of faces using still images and video. See, e.g.,Reference 2 below. Several relatively robust face recognition techniquesexist and systems are commercially available today (see Reference 3).However, little attention has been paid to “liveness” detection, i.e.,“verification . . . that the biometric matches the master biometric onfile.” In several use cases, spoofing protection is either not requiredor it is still being performed by humans (e.g., for law enforcementapplications).

The ubiquity of cameras in computing devices such as notebooks and smartphones on one hand, and the weakness of passwords as the most prevalentauthentication method on the other hand, drive the adoption of biometricauthentication methods in general, and face recognition in particular.The first large scale “trial” of face recognition as an authenticationmethod was done in Google Android 4 (aka, “Ice Cream Sandwich”) and wasbased on still image recognition. These techniques can be fooled easilywith photographs (See Reference 4). Even improved methods which includesome sort of liveness detection in Android 4.1 (aka, “Jelly Bean”) caneasily be spoofed by presenting two photos in a sequence, one with openeyes and an electronically modified one with closed eyes on a computerdisplay to the camera (see Reference 5).

Though it can be argued that this weakness is due to resourcelimitations on mobile devices, it also appears that commercial softwareavailable for PCs and even the research of anti-spoofing detection isnot yet very mature. The assignee of the present application performedtests with PC-based face recognition software which confirms thisfinding:

Cogent BioTrust 3.00.4063, operated on a Windows 7® based Samsung Series5® Notebook, performs no liveness check at all, even with securitysettings set to “high.” A simple face image, displayed on a normalcomputer monitor was sufficient to successfully spoof the system.

KeyLemon 2.6.5, operated on a Macbook Air® performs simple blink testsas liveness check. It can be successfully spoofed by displaying asequence of 3 images: (1) a real image of the face (e.g., created by aweb cam); (2) a modification of the real image, where the eyes have beenre-colored to look as if they are closed; (3) the real image again.

Anti-Spoofing detection is not part of standard tests such as the NISTbiometric vendor tests when comparing different algorithms. See, e.g.,References 6-8. One of the first known public competitions, organized byseveral researchers in 2011 (see Reference 9) showed early success ofsome algorithms, but it was based on videos with a resolution of 320×240pixels. Typical computing devices provide resolutions of thefront-facing cameras of at least 640×480 pixel.

FIG. 25 illustrates an exemplary client 2520 with a biometric device2500 for performing facial recognition. When operated normally, abiometric sensor 2502 (e.g., a camera) reads raw biometric data from theuser (e.g., snaps a photo of the user) and a feature extraction module2503 extracts specified characteristics of the raw biometric data (e.g.,focusing on certain facial features, etc). A matcher module 2504compares the extracted features with biometric template data 2510 storedin a secure storage on the client 2520 and generates a score and/or ayes/no response based on the similarity between the extracted featuresand the biometric template data 2510. The biometric template data 2510is typically the result of an enrollment process in which the userenrolls a facial image or other biometric data with the device 2500. Anapplication 2505 may then use the score or yes/no result to determinewhether the authentication was successful.

There are multiple potential points of attack in order to spoof a facialrecognition system (see References 10, 11), identified in FIG. 25 as(1)-(8). There are well known protection mechanisms for ensuring theintegrity of the biometric templates (6) (e.g., by using electronicsignatures) and protecting the integrity of feature extraction (3),feature vector (4), the matcher (5) and its final result (8) (e.g., byapplying a combination of (a) white box encryption methods, (b) codeobfuscation and (c) device binding).

Protection mechanisms against replaying old captured data to the featureextraction unit (2) are (at least theoretically) covered by the approachof the Trusted Computing Group and by potential extensions to ARMTrustZone. Basically, the approach is to add cryptographic protectionmechanisms (e.g. HMAC or electronic signatures) to the sensor andencapsulate the sensor in a tamper proof way, similar to the protectionmechanisms used in current smart card chips. The feature extractionengine could then verify the integrity of the incoming data.

While the embodiments of the invention described below utilize eyetracking techniques to confirm the “liveness” of the user, in oneembodiment, these techniques are combined with one or more existingtechniques for detecting fake biometrics (see Reference 1). This is anarea of ongoing research. Existing research has identified fourdifferent classes of protection approaches for fake biometrics (seeReference 12):

-   -   1. Data-driven characterization        -   a. Still Images            -   i. Detect resolution degradation by re-scanning images                analyzing 2D Fourier spectrum (Reference 13)            -   ii. Exploiting different reflection characteristics of                real faces versus image prints. The theory of this is                based on the Lambertian reflectance properties                (Reference 14)            -   iii. Exploiting different micro texture of real face and                image prints (Reference 15) due to printing defects.            -   iv. Exploiting quality degradation and noise addition on                printed images combined with other methods (Reference                16).        -   b. Videos            -   v. Each camera sensor has its own characteristics and                re-capturing a video displayed on a monitor causes                artifacts. This can be used to detect spoofing                (Reference 12).            -   vi. In the case of spoofing with images, there is a                face-background dependency (Reference 17).            -   vii. In the case of spoofing attacks, faces typically                show more rigid motion (Reference 18).        -   c. Combinations of Still Images and Videos (Reference 12).    -   2. User behavior modeling (Reference 12).    -   3. User interaction need (Reference 12).    -   4. Additional devices (Reference 12).

The most effective non-intrusive mechanisms based solely on existingsensor technology seem to be based on a combination of Motion, Texture,and Liveness detection. See Reference 9.

Textural Differences

The impact on printing and re-scanning a picture may be detected. It isintuitively clear that the quality of an image doesn't improve byprinting and re-scanning it. The research in Reference 15 shows thatdifferences can be algorithmically detected by analyzing micro textures:“A close look at the differences between real faces and face printsreveals that human faces and prints reflect light in different waysbecause a human face is a complex non rigid 3D object whereas aphotograph can be seen as a planar rigid object.”

This algorithm has been tested against the images included in the NUAAPhotograph Imposter Database. The performance has been reported to be at16.5 ms in average to process an image on a 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo CPUwith 3 GB of RAM using un-optimized C++ code.

Infrared Instead of Visual Light

It is difficult to display images or videos in infrared spectrum. As aresult liveness detection based on capturing thermal patterns of facesas proposed in Reference 19 would be more robust than capturing patternsin visual light. Unfortunately infrared sensors are expensive and notincluded in typical notebooks, tablets or smart phones.

Optical Flow Based Methods

Real faces are 3 dimensional objects. Faces are typically moving innormal conversations. The 2D motion of the central face parts, i.e., theparts with less distance to the camera is expected to be higher comparedto the 2D motion of face regions with greater distance from the camera(References 20, 21, 22). For this type of detection a sequence of atleast 3 consecutive images is required.

The research in Reference 21 is part of the SART-2 project, a Biometricsecurity system for mobile workstations.

Motion Pictures Instead of Still Images

In Reference 23, a blinking-based liveness detection method isdescribed. This method seems to be pretty robust against simple photobased spoofing attacks. In addition to recognizing the face, the methodlocates the eyes and checks whether closing the eyes is visible in theobserved image sequence. As seen from the Android 4.1 large scale trial,this method is obviously not very robust against “photoshop” attacks.See Reference 5.

In general, in order to spoof such motion picture based systems theattacker must generate a small image sequence and must present thesequence to the sensor. In a world with powerful image editors, freevideo editors, and tablet PCs this is relatively easy to achieve.

Such methods are characterized as “publicly known interactions,” i.e.,the attacker knows the required interactions in advance and can preparea matching image sequence.

In Reference 23, the context of the scene and eye-blink is included inthe analysis. Performance measured on Intel Core2 Duo 2.8 GHz, 2 GB RAMis approximately 50 ms per video frame (20 fps).

Challenge Response Methods

In the context of biometrics, a challenge response is defined as: Amethod used to confirm the presence of a person by eliciting directresponses from the individual. Responses can be either voluntarily orinvoluntarily. In a voluntary response, the end user will consciouslyreact to something that the system presents. In an involuntary response,the end user's body automatically responds to a stimulus. A challengeresponse can be used to protect the system against attacks.

(National Science & Technology Council's Subcommittee on Biometrics)Multimodal Systems

Multimodal systems have been proposed to improve the robustness ofbiometric methods against spoofing attacks, noisy data etc. SeeReference 25.

The effect of simulated spoofing attacks to such multimodal systems isanalyzed in Reference 26. The main result is that not all fusion schemesimprove the robustness against spoofing attacks, meaning that in somefusion schemes it is sufficient to spoof only a single biometric methodin order to spoof the entire multimodal system. The analysis of existingschemes with real spoofing attacks lead to similar results. SeeReference 27.

In general, there are three different classes of multimodal systems:

-   -   1) Systems where successfully spoofing a single trait is        sufficient to spoof the entire system. Optimizing a multimodal        system for small FRRs typically leads to such results.    -   2) Systems where:        -   a) more than one trait has to be spoofed in order to            successfully spoof the entire system; and        -   b) spoofing any one trait in this multimodal system is no            more complex than spoofing the same trait in a single modal            system.    -   3) Systems where        -   a) more than one trait has to be spoofed in order to            successfully spoof the entire system; and        -   b) spoofing any one trait in this multimodal system is more            complex than spoofing the same trait in a single modal            system. The embodiments of the invention described below            fall into this category.

One embodiment of the invention performs eye-tracking as part of anauthentication process to measure the response to varying regions ofinterest randomly arranged and displayed on the screen. For example, asequence of random screen layouts mixing text, empty regions, images andvideo clips may be presented to the user to non-intrusively induceuser's eye-movement. Concurrently, eye-tracking techniques are used toverify that the eyes are reacting to the screen layout in an expectedmanner. This information may then be combined with face recognitiontechniques to verify that the expected face is still present. Moreover,as discussed above, the eye tracking and facial recognition techniquesmay be combined with other techniques (e.g., location-basedauthentication, non-intrusive user presence detection, fingerprintscanning, etc) to arrive at a sufficient level of assurance that thelegitimate user is in possession of the device.

Reading a Web page or other content type does not involve a smoothsweeping of the eyes along the contents, but a series of short stops(called “fixations”) and quick “saccades”. The resulting series offixations and saccades is called a “scanpath”. Scanpaths are useful foranalyzing cognitive intent, interest, and salience (see currentWikiPedia article for “Eye Tracking” aten.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_tracking). A “heatmap” is an aggregaterepresentation showing what areas a group of people fixated when viewinga webpage or email (see Hartzell, “Crazy Egg Heatmap Shows Where PeopleClick on Your Website” (Nov. 30, 2012), currently atwww.michaelhartzell.com/Blog/bid/92970/Crazy-Egg-Heatmap-shows-where-people-click-on-your-website).

As illustrated in FIG. 26A, one embodiment of the invention comprises anauthentication engine 2610 on a client device 2600 which includes afacial recognition module 2604 for performing facial recognition and aneye tracking module 2605 for performing the eye tracking operationsdescribed herein. In one embodiment, the facial recognition module 2604and eye tracking module 2605 analyze sequences of video images 2603captured by a camera 2602 on the device to perform their respectiveoperations.

To perform its facial recognition operations, the facial recognitionmodule 2604 relies on facial recognition templates stored within asecure facial recognition database 2646. In particular, as discussedabove, matching logic within the facial recognition module 2604 comparesfacial features extracted from the video images 2603 with facialtemplate data stored in the facial recognition database 2646 andgenerates a “score” based on the similarity between the extractedfeatures and the facial template data. As previously discussed, thefacial template data stored in the database 2646 may be generated by anenrollment process in which the user enrolls a facial image or otherbiometric data with the device 2600. The score generated by the facialrecognition module 2604 may then be combined with scores from otherauthentication modules (e.g., such as eye tracking module 2605 discussedbelow) to form an assurance level 2606, representing the assurance thatthe legitimate user is initiating the current transaction. In oneembodiment, each score must reach a particular threshold value togenerate a sufficient assurance level 2606 for a particular transaction.In one embodiment (assuming the thresholds are reached), the scores maybe added together or combined using other mathematical formulae (e.g.,the scores may be weighted, averaged, added together, or combined in anyother way).

To perform eye tracking analysis, the eye tracking module 2605 relies oneye tracking templates stored within a secure eye tracking database2645. Although illustrated as a separate database, the eye trackingdatabase and facial recognition database may actually be the same securedatabase. In one embodiment, an eye tracking template specifies thetext, graphics, pictures, videos and/or blank regions which are to bedisplayed for the user on the client device's display 2601 (someexamples of which are shown in FIGS. 28A-B below) and potentially theorder in which the content is to be displayed. In addition, the eyetracking template includes data specifying the expected motioncharacteristic of a user's eyes in response to the content displayed tothe user (e.g. in form of a heatmap, see below). Matching logic withinthe eye tracking module 2605 compares the expected motion of the user'seyes with the actual motion (captured from the video images) to arriveat a “score” based on the similarity between the expected motion and theactual motion. As mentioned, the score may then be combined with scoresfrom other authentication modules (e.g., such as facial recognitionmodule 2604) to form an assurance level 2606. The eye tracking templatedata stored in the database 2646 may be compiled using recorded eyemovements of other users and/or of the actual user of the device inresponse to each displayed Web page or other displayed image. Forexample, as with the facial recognition template, the eye trackingtemplate may be generated as part of an enrollment process in which theuser enrolls his/her eye motion with the device 2600.

In one embodiment, the eye tracking module 2605 determines thecorrelation between the images being displayed (which may include text,graphics, video, pictures, and/or blank regions) and the user's eyemovement. For example, if a motion video is displayed in the lower rightcorner of the display, the vast majority of users will direct theirattention to this region. Thus, if the eye tracking module 2605 detectsthat the user's eyes have moved to this region within a designatedperiod of time (e.g., 2 seconds), then it will detect a high correlationbetween the user's eyes and the template, resulting in a relatively highscore. In contrast, if the user's eyes do not move to this region (or donot move at all), then the eye tracking module 2605 will detect a lowcorrelation and corresponding low score.

As illustrated in FIG. 26A, various other explicit user authenticationdevices 2620-2621 and sensors 2643 may be configured on the clientdevice 2600. These authentication devices and sensors may provideadditional authentication data (if necessary) to be used by theauthentication engine 2610 when generating the assurance level 2606(i.e., in addition to the eye tracking and facial recognition describedherein). For example, the sensors may include location sensors (e.g.,GPS) to determine the location of the client device 2600. If the clientdevice is in an expected location, then the authentication engine mayuse this data to increase the assurance level 2606. By contrast, if theclient device is in an unusual location (e.g., another country), thenthis may negatively impact the assurance level 2606. In this manner,authentication data may be generated non-intrusively (i.e., using sensordata collected without explicit input from the end user).

In addition, another non-intrusive technique involves the authenticationengine 2610 monitoring the time which has passed since the last explicituser authentication. For example, if the user has authenticated using afingerprint or other biometric device 2620-2621 or has entered apassword recently (e.g., within 10 minutes), then it will use thisinformation to increase the assurance level 2606. By contrast, if theuser has not explicitly authenticated for several days, then it mayrequire more rigorous authentication by the facial recognition module2605 and eye tracking module 2605 (e.g., it may require a highercorrelation with the template data than usual to increase the assurancelevel to an acceptable value for the current transaction).

In one embodiment, secure storage 2625 is a secure storage deviceprovided for storing the authentication keys associated with each of theauthenticators and used by the secure communication module 2613 toestablish secure communication with the relying party (e.g., a cloudservice 2650 or other type of network service).

FIG. 26B illustrates another embodiment in which the authenticationengine 2610 includes a voice recognition module 2660 and a lip movementanalysis module 2670 in addition to (or in lieu of) the facialrecognition module 2604 and eye tracking module 2605. In one embodiment,the user's voice is captured via a microphone 2680 and the analog voicesignal is converted to a digital signal via an analog to digital (A/D)converter 2681. The voice recognition module 2660 compares the digitalvoice signal to a voice print of the user stored within a voice database2665. In one embodiment, the voice print is generated during atraining/enrollment process in which the user is prompted to speakcertain words or phrases. Upon receiving the digitized audio signalresulting from the spoken words/phrases, the voice recognition module2660 generates the voice print by capturing specific characteristics ofthe user's voice (e.g., spectral characteristics, phonetic-basedcategorization, etc), and storing the results within the voice database2665. The voice recognition module 2660 may utilize various voicerecognition techniques when generating the voice print and comparing thevoice print to a captured voice signal including, but not limited totechniques based on frequency estimation, hidden Markov models, Gaussianmixture models, pattern matching algorithms, neural networks, matrixrepresentation, Vector Quantization, and decision trees.

In one embodiment, the user is prompted to speak a particular sequenceof words and/or phrases displayed on the display 2601 of the clientdevice. These may be the same words/phrases or similar words/phrases asthose used during the enrollment process so that the voice recognitionmodule 2660 can compare similar voice characteristics to those capturedin the voice print.

In response to its analysis, the voice recognition module 2660 generatesa “score” or other value indicating the extent to which the capturedvoice and the voice print are similar or dissimilar. These results arethen used by the authentication engine 2610 to increase or decrease theassurance level 2606. For example, if there is a 97% chance that thelegitimate user has spoken the indicated words/phrases, then theassurance level 2606 may be increased. By contrast, if there is a 97%chance that the legitimate user was not the one speaking thewords/phrases, then the assurance level 2606 may be decreased.

In addition, one embodiment also includes a lip movement analysis module2670 which performs an analysis of the motion of the user's lips as theuser speaks the words/phrases. For example, the lip movement analysismodule 2670 may compare the video images 2603 of the user as the user isspeaking the words/phrases and determine the extent to which the audiostream captured via the microphone 2680 matches the video stream. If thelips of the user are out of sync with the captured audio stream, thenthis may indicate that the current user is spoofing the system (e.g.,playing back a recording of the legitimate user's voice). To determinewhether synchronization exists, the lip movement analysis module 2670may be trained to associate certain phonetics and volume levels withcertain lip/mouth positions and/or movements over time. For example, itwould be expected that periods when the user's mouth is open (i.e., lipsare separated) would result in a larger volume than when the user'smouth is closed (lips are together). Similarly, it would be expectedthat vowel sounds would be heard during times when the user's lips areseparated and consonants during times when the user's lips are together.

In addition, in one embodiment, the lip movement analysis module 2670may compare the lip movements captured in the video images 2603 withreference lip-movements of the user stored within a lip movementdatabase 2675. As with the voice prints, the reference lip movements maybe captured during an enrollment process in which images of the userspeaking certain words/phrases are recorded, and relevant data extractedand stored within the database 2675.

In one embodiment, a score or other value is generated by the lipmovement analysis module 2670 to indicate a correlation between the lipmovements of the user captured on video 2603 and those which would beexpected. For example, if the audio and video appear to be in sync, thenthe lip movement analysis module 2670 may generate a relatively higherscore than if the audio and video appear to be out of sync. Similarly,the lip movement analysis module 2670 may generate a relatively higherscore if the lip movements detected in the video images 2603 have a highcorrelation to the reference lip movements stored in the lip movementdatabase 2675.

In one embodiment, the analysis of the voice recognition module 2660,lip movement analysis module 2670, facial recognition module 2604 and/oreye tracking module 2605 may be combined to generate the assurance level2606, providing a likelihood that the legitimate user is in possessionof the client device 2600. Embodiments of the invention may beimplemented with any one of these modules or any combination of thesemodules to generate the assurance level 2606. This assurance level 2606may then be used in combination with various other authenticationtechniques described herein.

While several components from FIG. 26A are not illustrated in FIG. 26Bto avoid obscuring the additional features of this embodiment (e.g.,sensors 2643, eye tracking database 2645, facial recognition database2646, explicit user authentication devices 2620-2621, secure storage2625, etc) these components may be considered to be included in theembodiment of FIG. 26B.

An exemplary “heatmap” generated for a Web page is illustrated in FIG.27. The color coding represents the regions of the Web page on whichusers fixed their eyes while viewing. Red indicates the highest amountof fixation (meaning that users tended to view these regions morefrequently), followed by yellow (indicating less fixation), blue(indicating still less fixation), and then no color (indicating nofixation or fixation below a threshold amount).

When designing web pages, eye tracking and heatmap analysis is performedas part of the usability analysis. Research (see, e.g., References 29,30) has shown that Web users spend 80% of their time looking atinformation above the page fold. Although users do scroll, they allocateonly 20% of their attention below the fold. Web users spend 69% of theirtime viewing the left half of the page and 30% viewing the right half. Aconventional layout is thus more likely to make sites profitable.

Spoofing attacks like presenting a still face image or a video displayedon a monitor can be detected by the eye tracking module 205 as thescanpath would most probably not correlate to the screen layout.Different types of Eye-Tracking methods are available: specializedequipment with high accuracy and software based methods using standardweb cams (see Reference 33).

FIG. 28A illustrates an exemplary grouping of text 2805 and an imageand/or video 2801 displayed on the client device display 2601. In oneembodiment, the grouping is integrated into a Web page. However, theunderlying principles of the invention are not limited to a Web-basedorganization. The grouping could also be part of a Screen Saver or otherapplications. In one embodiment, the text 2805 and image/video 2801 aredisplayed concurrently. In another embodiment, the text is displayedfirst, followed by the image/video 2801. In either case, the expectationis that the user's eyes would be directed to the lower right corner ofthe display 2601 (where the image/video 2801 is displayed).

FIG. 28B illustrates another example which includes a text region 2805and three image/video elements 2800-2802. In one embodiment, theimage/video element 2800 is displayed first, followed by image/videoelement 2801, followed by image/video element 2802. In such a case, theuser's eyes should move from the upper right corner of the display, tothe lower right, and then to the lower left.

In one embodiment, the particular image/video elements 2800-2802 andother content types are randomly selected by the eye tracking module2605, thereby making it harder to anticipate and spoof. In addition, theparticular location in which the different image/video elements2800-2802 are selected randomly. In such a case, the eye motion templatemay specify a particular mode of operation for displaying content, butwill not specify the actual content o the actual location(s). Rather,the content and the locations are selected by the eye tracking module2605 which will then assume that the user's eyes should gravitatetowards the content being displayed and generate a correlation and scorebased on the extent to which this is detected.

In addition, rather than generating its own content, the eye trackingmodule 2605 may use existing content such as an existing Web page of therelying party 2650 or images stored locally on the device. For example,if the relying party is a financial institution and the user isattempting to enter into a financial transaction, then the Web pagenormally displayed during the transaction may be displayed. In such acase, the eye tracking module 2605 may retrieve a heatmap for the Webpage (such as shown in FIG. 27) from the eye tracking database 2645 anddetermine whether a correlation exists to the heatmap and the locationsbeing viewed by the end user.

In summary, the embodiments described herein may present a sequence ofrandom screen layouts mixing text, empty regions, images and video clipsand continuously track the user's eyes producing the captured scanpath.A correlation is then made between the captured scanpath and theexpected scanpath. In addition, one embodiment of the invention may thenre-verify that the face is still recognized.

Not all people are equally attracted by the same images or imagesequences. For example some people are attracted by technology more thanthey are by animals, text, known or unknown human faces or bodies,mystic symbols, or even mathematical formulas. With this in mind, oneembodiment of the eye tracking module 2605 learns the person specificcharacteristics of eye-movement triggered by different types of images.The degree of similarity of the measured characteristic from the videoimages 2603 and the reference data (stored in the eye tracking database2645) is then used to generate the assurance level 2606 (i.e., thecertainty that the legitimate user's eyes are following “challenge”images, video, and other content displayed on the display 2601).

A method in accordance with one embodiment of the invention isillustrated in FIGS. 29A-B. The method may be implemented within asystem architecture such as shown in FIG. 26A, but is not limited to anyparticular system architecture.

Turning first to FIG. 29A, at 2901 a particular eye tracking template isselected for the given user and/or transaction. At 2902 a sequence ofimages of the user's face are captured while displaying contentaccording to the template. For example, the template may specify thetypes of content, the location of the content, and the timing fordisplaying the content. Alternatively, the template may only generallyspecify a type of eye-tracking and the eye tracking module 2605 maydetermine how, where and when to display the content.

Regardless of how the content is selected and displayed, at 2903, facialrecognition is performed and, at 2904, eye tracking analysis isperformed using the captured sequence of images. At 2905 a facialassurance level is generated based on the correlation between thecaptured images and the facial templates. Similarly, at 2906, an eyetracking assurance level is generated based on the correlation betweenthe motion of the user's eyes and the expected motion of the user'seyes.

FIG. 29B illustrates a sequence of voice recognition operations and lipmovement correlation operations which may be performed in parallel withthe operations of FIG. 29A. Alternatively, the operations in FIGS. 29A-Bmay be performed sequentially, in any order, until an acceptableassurance level has been reached.

At 2911, audio and video of a current user in possession of the clientdevice is captured and digitized. At 2912, a particular voice print isselected from the voice database (e.g., one previously recorded for theuser during an enrollment process) and voice recognition operations areperformed. At 2917, a score/assurance level indicating a correlationbetween the current user's voice and the voice print is generated. At2913, a correlation between the digitized audio and the lip movements ofthe video captured for the current user is determined and, at 2915, ascore/assurance level is generated based on the level ofsynchronization. At 2914, a correlation is performed between thecaptured lip movements in the video and reference lip movement datacollected during an enrollment process of the legitimate user. At 2916,a score/assurance level is generated indicating the extent to which thecaptured lip movements match the reference lip movements. Following2917, 2915, and/or 2916, the resulting scores are combined with theresults from 2905 and 2906 to generate an final assurance level at 2907.As mentioned, if the combined results are sufficient at 2907, then thetransaction is permitted at 2909. If not, then additional authenticationtechniques may be required at 2908.

Although illustrated in FIGS. 29A-B as parallel operations 2903/2905 and2904/2906, the facial recognition operations 2903/2905 may be performedfirst and the eye tracking operations 2904/2906 may then be performedonly if the facial recognition operations result in a highcorrelation/assurance level (or vice-versa). Similarly, the voicerecognition operations 2912 and lip movement operations 2912/1913,2915/2916 may be performed in parallel or in sequence (e.g., until anacceptable assurance level has been reached).

At 2907, a determination is made as to whether the combined results ofthe facial authentication and eye tracking is sufficient to allow thecurrent transaction to proceed. If so, then the transaction is permittedat 2909. If not, then at 2908, the transaction is disallowed oradditional authentication techniques are requested to raise the level ofassurance. For example, at this stage, the user may be asked to swipe afinger on a fingerprint sensor or to enter a PIN associated with theuser's account. If the additional authentication techniques aresufficient, determined at 2910, then the transaction is permitted at2909.

H. System and Method for Collecting and Utilizing Client Data for RiskAssessment During Authentication

Some types of authenticators are very trustworthy, and others are not.Thus, there is a range of assurance that relying parties can haveregarding authenticators and certain types of client data may be usedfor risk assessment (e.g., to adjust that assurance up or down). Forexample, if the remote authenticator has a secure element or trustedexecution environment (TEE), then the authentication can be securelysigned with an attestation key. The attestation key stays inside thesecure element and is inaccessible by any external entities. The actualauthentication operation is also performed inside the secure element.Using the attestation key signature, the relying party can know for surethat a remote authenticator is responsible for the authenticationattempt.

If the remote authenticator lacks a secure element, then attestationsigning has to be done in software, which opens the door for an attack.One way to mitigate this is to store the attestation key in asoftware-protected “whitebox”. The attestation key cannot leave thewhitebox and performs signing on the authentication attempt. However,since the code doing the authentication and the whitebox doing theattestation signature are decoupled (and the whitebox is softwarebased), this is less trustworthy than using a secure element or trustedexecution environment (TEE).

Finally, lacking all of the above, the entire authentication operationmay be done completely in software. This is the least secure, since boththe authentication code and the attestation key itself may becompromised.

In any of the above examples, it would beneficial if the relying partycould collect client data to determine the specific manner in whichauthentication is being performed so that the client risk can beassessed when performing authentication (e.g., when generating anassurance level as discussed below).

By improving risk assessment via additional data, one embodiment of theinvention averts fraudulent transactions by collecting client data andassessing the risk associated with each client. The level of riskassociated with the client may then be used to specify theauthentication techniques which must be used to authenticate the userfor a particular transaction. To assess risk, one embodiment of theinvention determines (1) the types of data which are useful for riskcalculations, (2) how to obtain additional data that the Web browsercannot provide securely, and (3) how to do it in a way that does notcompromise the user's privacy.

One of the biggest reasons that viruses, worms, and malware infectcomputers is because the operating system has not been recently updatedto close potential vulnerabilities. These vulnerabilities in theoperating system, once they are made known to the public, are very easyto exploit by criminals. The longer that a system has gone without anupdate, the more potential vulnerabilities exist to exploit and thegreater the risk that a password may be compromised by malicious code.Web browsers do not allow web sites to access the update history of auser's computer. If they did, web sites could identify potential victimsbased on vulnerabilities that are known to be on their system.Consequently, one embodiment of the invention runs as a secure agent,executed as a native application (rather than a browser plug-in) whichcollects client data to determine the current operating system versionand/or how recently the operating system has been updated.

One defense against malicious code, once it has infected the user'scomputer, is anti-virus software (for example, Windows® Defender®). Eventhough the malicious code has already infiltrated the system, antivirussoftware will at least alert the user that something bad has occurred,thereby limiting the eventual damage inflicted. The user can changeaccount passwords and verify recent transactions. However, if noantivirus software is installed, or antivirus software is installed buthas not been run recently, there is a higher chance that the user isunaware that malicious code exists on their computer. Transactions thatoccur on that computer would be at a higher risk of fraud. Web browserswill not reveal if antivirus software is installed on a computer. Thus,in one embodiment, the native agent application locates and collectsclient configuration data to determine whether anti-virus software hasbeen installed and, if so, how recently it has been updated and/orexecuted.

Another defense, especially against worms, is a firewall. If a softwarefirewall is installed and enabled on a user's machine, the number ofentry points for attack is greatly reduced. Open ports that wouldnormally service any request coming over the wire from random Internethosts are neutered. Thus, even if a service that is listening to a porthas an unpatched security hole, the risk is eliminated because nocommunication is allowed to access it. On the other hand, a computerrunning without a software firewall has a much greater potential to beinfected by a worm, especially if it has not been recently updated. Webbrowsers, through port scanning, can indirectly detect firewalls withlimited success. Consequently, in one embodiment, the native agentapplication locates and collects firewall configuration data todetermine whether a firewall is installed and, if so, how recently ithas been updated.

If a user's computer is physically stolen, a significant amount ofinformation can be gathered by criminals and used to commit fraud. If auser's machine is password protected and preferably the entire harddrive encrypted to that password, the risk of information being leakedbecause of a burglary is lessened. If not, a higher level of risk can beassessed. Thus, in one embodiment, the native agent applicationdetermines whether the hard drive content has been encrypted and usesthis information as part of its risk assessment of the client.

In addition, as discussed above, if the client uses a secure element ortrusted execution environment (TEE) for performing authentication, thenthe relying party can have a high assurance that the authenticationprovided by the client is legitimate. If the remote authenticator lacksa secure element, then a software-protected “whitebox” may be used forprotecting attestation data (e.g., the attestation key). However, asmentioned, since the code doing the authentication and the whiteboxdoing the attestation signature are decoupled (and the whitebox issoftware based), this is less trustworthy than using a secure element ortrusted execution environment (TEE). Finally, lacking all of the above,the entire authentication operation may be done completely in software(which, as mentioned, is the least secure manner of operation). Oneembodiment of the invention allows the relying party to collect theabove client data to determine the specific manner in whichauthentication is being performed so that the client risk can beassessed when performing authentication.

As illustrated in FIG. 30, in one embodiment of the invention, a clientdevice 3000 includes a client risk assessment agent 3004 which collectsvarious types of client configuration data 3050 and responsivelycalculates a risk level for the client 3000. In one embodiment, theclient risk assessment agent 3004 is a native code agent applicationdesigned to run directly within the native operating system (OS) 3010 ofthe client 3000. Consequently, the client risk assessment agent 3004does not suffer from the limitations associated with browser plugins andother types of program code which are limited in their ability to accessclient data for security reasons. In other words, the client riskassessment agent 3004 is permitted to collect data that HTML andJavascript code running in the browser context are not permitted toaccess. Thus, even though the authentication engine 3010 may beimplemented within the browser context, it will have access to theadditional risk analysis provided by the client risk assessment agent3004 (although it should be noted that the authentication engine 3010need not be implemented within the browser context while still complyingwith the underlying principles of the invention).

In one embodiment, the authentication engine 3010 includes an assurancelevel calculation module 3006 for calculating an assurance levelcorresponding to a likelihood that the legitimate user is in possessionof the client device 3000. It may then use this assurance level todetermine whether to complete a pending transaction with a remoterelying party 3051 over a network (e.g., such as a financialtransaction, an online purchase, an access to confidential informationin the user's account, etc). In one embodiment, the relying party 3051may specify the level of assurance required for a given transaction. Forexample, for a financial transaction involving the transfer of asignificant amount of money, the relying party 3051 may require arelatively higher assurance level than, for example, a transactioninvolving access to a user's email account. Although illustrated as asingle entity, the “relying party” may comprise a Website or otheronline service equipped with separate secure transaction servers forperforming the underlying authentication techniques described herein.

In one embodiment, the assurance level calculation module 3006 transmitsthe assurance level (e.g., specified as a value, percentage, code, etc)to the relying party 3051, without disclosing any confidential userinformation collected by the client risk assessment agent 3004, therebyprotecting the user's privacy. In another embodiment, the assurancelevel calculation module 3006 knows the assurance level required for thecurrent transaction, determines whether the assurance level issufficiently high, and transmits an indication of whether thetransaction is permitted or denied to the relying party 3051, onceagain, without disclosing the user's private information to the relyingparty 3051.

In one embodiment, the communication between the client device 3000 andrelying party 3051 is secured via a secure communication module 3013,which may encrypt outgoing communication using a first key and decryptincoming communication using a second key. In a symmetric key encryptionscheme the first and second keys are the same. In an asymmetric keyencryption scheme, the keys are different. However, the underlyingprinciples of the invention are not limited to any particular type ofencryption.

In one embodiment, the assurance level calculation module 3006determines the assurance level based on current user authenticationresults 3005 in addition to the risk data provided by the client riskassessment agent 3004. In particular, the user authentication results3005 may include the results of a current or recent explicit userauthentication via one or more explicit user authentication devices3020-3021. This may include, for example, fingerprint authentication viaa fingerprint device, facial recognition authentication via a camera andfacial recognition hardware/software, voice recognition via a microphoneand voice recognition hardware/software, retinal scanning using a cameraand associated hardware/software, a password/PIN entry by the end uservia a keypad, and/or various other types of explicit user authenticationdevices and/or techniques.

In one embodiment, a secure storage 3025 cryptographically protects thebiometric reference data records for each user authentication device3020-3021 (e.g., wrapping the data using a symmetric key to make thestorage 3025 secure). While the secure storage 3025 is illustratedoutside of the secure perimeter of the authentication device(s)3020-3021, in one embodiment, each authentication device 3020-3021 mayhave its own integrated secure storage to cryptographically protect thebiometric reference data records.

In addition to explicit user authentication, one embodiment of theauthentication engine 3010 collects data from sensors 3043 to be used bythe assurance calculation module 3006 to generate the assurance level.By way of example, the sensors 3043 may include location sensors such asGPS sensors to indicate a current location of the user. If the clientdevice 3000 is in an expected location such as the user's work or home,then this increases the likelihood that the user is the legitimate user.By contrast, if the user is in an unexpected location such as a foreigncountry which the user has not previously visited, then this increasesthe likelihood that the user is not the legitimate user. Thus, in oneembodiment, the assurance calculation module 3006 will tend to increasethe assurance level if the user is in an expected location and decreasethe assurance level if the user is in an unexpected location.

Various additional sensors 3043 such as temperature sensors, humiditysensors and accelerometers may be used to collect data relevant to userauthentication. For example, the temperature/humidity sensors mayprovide a current temperature/humidity which may be compared against theknown temperature/humidity for the location specified by the locationsensor. If the values are significantly different, then this mayindicate that the client device 3000 is being spoofed. The comparison ofthe asserted location and the temperature/humidity may be done at aremote server such as the secure transaction server(s) 4632 describedbelow with respect to FIGS. 46A-B. In another embodiment, accelerometerson the device may be used to measure the gait of the user and comparethese measurements against the known gait of the user. If the gaitsmatch (within a specified threshold), then this increases the likelihoodthat the legitimate user is in possession of the client device 3000.

As illustrated in FIG. 31, various types of client configuration datarelevant to determining risk may be collected and used including, forexample, hardware data 3101, operating system data 3102 and applicationdata 3103. By way of example, and not limitation, the hardware data 3101may include the client device model, processor name/type, boot ROMversion, and management controller version. The operating system data3102 may include the current operating system version, the date that theOS was updated, and the current boot mode (e.g., boot from hard drive).The application data 3103 may include an indication as to whether afirewall is active, the firewall type and version, an indication as towhether anti-virus software is installed along with the current versionand updates to the virus definition files, an indication as to whetherthe anti-virus software is active (e.g., actively monitoring the clientdevice during runtime), an indication of the last complete and/orpartial virus scan, and the results of recent virus scans. In addition,the application data 3103 or OS data 3102 may include an indication asto whether the data is stored on the user's persistent storage device(e.g., hard drive, Flash memory, etc) in an encrypted or otherwisesecure manner.

As mentioned, in one embodiment, the assurance level calculation module3006 factors in both the risk assessment data provided by the clientrisk assessment agent 3004 and the user authentication results 3005 toarrive at an assurance level that the legitimate user is attempting thecurrent transaction. By way of example, and not limitation, if theclient configuration data 3050 indicates that the current client doesnot have an active firewall or virus detection software, then it mayreport to the assurance calculation module 3006 that the clientrepresents higher risk than a client which does have these featuresenabled. Similarly, if the virus detection software has not been updatedor executed recently (e.g., within a threshold time period), then theclient risk assessment agent 3004 may report a heightened risk to theassurance level calculation module 3006. The risk level may be specifiedin a variety of ways while still complying with the underlyingprinciples of the invention. For example, the risk level may be based ona percentage (e.g., 0%=least risk, 100%=greatest risk, and all numbersin-between representing different levels of intermediate risk) or anumerical value on a scale (e.g., 1=least risk, 10=highest risk, and allnumbers in-between representing different levels of intermediate risk).

Regardless of how the risk data is provided, in one embodiment, theassurance level calculation module 3006 determines the level ofauthentication required based on the risk data provided by the clientrisk assessment agent 3004. For example, if the client risk assessmentindicates a relatively high risk value (e.g., 9 or 10 out of 10), thenthe assurance level calculation module 3006 may require a more reliableand/or explicit user authentication such as PIN/password entry and/orfingerprint scan to authenticate the user for the current transaction.By contrast, if the client risk assessment indicates a relatively lowrisk (e.g., a 1 or 2 out of 10), then the assurance level calculationmodule 3006 may require a non-intrusive user authentication such aslocation-based authentication and/or reliance on a recent explicit userauthentication for the current transaction.

It should be noted that data in FIG. 31 is arranged in a table format infor simplicity. The actual client configuration data 150 may be storedin various different formats including binary files, hierarchical filesystem arrangements, linked lists, and OS registry formats, to name justa few. The underlying principles of the invention are not limited to anyparticular configuration data format.

As indicated in FIG. 30, in one embodiment, the client risk assessmentagent 3004 is provided with access to the client configuration data 3050through the OS (e.g., by making appropriate calls to the applicationprogramming interface (API) exposed by the OS). In another embodiment,the client risk assessment agent 3004 accesses the client configurationdata 3050 directly from the underlying file system in which the data isstored. In one embodiment, the client risk assessment agent 3004 isprovided with secure access to the underlying configuration data.Various security features may be implemented to ensure the security ofthe configuration data 3050 such as chain of trust technology and SecureEnclaves.

One consideration with allowing additional risk information to beprovided to web sites is that the rational for why the browser does notprovide this information in the first place is not ignored. Certainly,malicious web sites could make good use of this information and webbrowser developers have a good reason for leaving this information outof reach. Thus, as mentioned, in one embodiment, the underlying clientconfiguration data 3050 is not directly provided to the relying party3051. Rather, in one embodiment, the client risk data is assesseddirectly on the client device by the client risk assessment agent 3004and a risk value is provided to the assurance level calculation. All therelying party 3051 needs to know is whether authentication wassuccessful (if an assurance level was specified ahead of time) and/orthe current assurance level. In this manner, the client's configurationdata 3050 is protected from disclosure.

One embodiment of a method for assessing client risk duringauthentication is illustrated in FIG. 32. The method may be implementedon the architecture shown in FIGS. 30-31 but is not limited to anyparticular system architecture.

At 3201, the client configuration data related to client risk isretrieved. This may include, for example, the existence and currentstatus of firewall or virus detection software and/or the currentversion of the operating system (e.g., how recently the OS was updated).At 3202, the client configuration data is assessed to determine a riskvalue for the client (e.g., a percentage, numerical value, or other datacapable of specifying a risk level). At 3203, using the client riskassessment, the assurance level is determined. In one embodiment, higherrisk values require higher assurance levels (e.g., a risk value of 10might require an assurance level of above 90%). In another embodiment,the assurance level itself is calculated based on the assessed risk. Forexample, as mentioned above, the risk value may be included as one ofmany variables (including prior or current user authentications) todetermine the current assurance level.

At 3204, authentication techniques are selected which, if completedsuccessfully, would raise the assurance level to an acceptable level forthe current transaction. For example, if the risk is high, then explicituser authentication may be required. If the risk is low, then a priorrecent authentication or a non-intrusive authentication may besufficient.

At 3205, a determination is made as to whether the authentication wassuccessful. If so, then the transaction is permitted at 3208. If not,then at 3206, one or more additional authentication techniques may berequired or the transaction may be disallowed. For example, if thecurrent assurance level is insufficient, the user may be asked to entera secret previously provided to the relying party 3051 or may provideother/additional authentication. If the additional authenticationtechniques are sufficient, determined at 3207, then the transaction ispermitted at 3208. If not, then the transaction is disallowed at 3206.

I. System and Method for Performing Authentication for a LocalTransaction

The embodiments of the invention described herein include techniques forauthenticating a user for a local transaction initiated through a localsecure transaction device. By way of example, the local transaction maybe a withdrawal, transfer, or other user-initiated operation and thesecure transaction device may be an ATM or other local device capable ofexecuting financial transactions. Similarly, the local transaction mayinvolve completing a payment to purchase goods or services at a retailstore or other retail location equipped with a local secure transactiondevice.

As illustrated in FIG. 33, in one embodiment, a client device 3300 withbiometric authentication devices and associated software authenticatesover a network to a relying party with secure transaction services 3351to perform a transaction on a local secure transaction device 3350. Inparticular, when the user of client device 3300 wishes to perform atransaction locally with secure transaction device 3350, it initiates aseries of authentication transactions with the relying party 3351(examples of which are described below). For example, the user may berequired to swipe a finger on a fingerprint reader on the client device3300 and/or enter a PIN or other secret code via a client keypad. Theresults of the authentication may then be transmitted from the clientdevice 3300 to the relying party 3351 without transmitting the user'sprivate data (e.g., the fingerprint data, PIN, or any other private userdata), thereby protecting the user's privacy.

In response to a successful authentication, the relying party 3351 maytransmit a signal to the local secure transaction device 3350 to performan operation. For example, if the local secure transaction device is anATM, the signal may instruct the ATM to dispense a specified amount ofcash. If the local secure transaction device 3350 is a retail checkoutdevice then an indication of successful payment may be transmitted andthe user's account may be debited.

In addition, as shown in FIG. 33, a local secure communication channelmay be established between the client device 3300 and the local securetransaction device 3350 to supplement the user authentication process.The local secure channel may be established using wireless communicationinterfaces on the client device 3300 and local secure transaction device3350 utilizing various wireless communication technologies such as nearfield communication (NFC), Bluetooth, or WiFi (e.g., an 802.11xchannel), to name a few. For example, when in the vicinity of thelocation secure transaction device 3350, the client device 3300 mayperform a near-field communication (NFC) handshake via its wirelessinterface with the wireless interface of the local secure transactiondevice 3350 and establish the local secure channel to exchange dataduring authentication.

The mere existence of the local secure channel comprises authenticationdata because it establishes the current location of the client device3300. Consequently, this information may be used by the relying party3351 as proof of the current location of the client device 3300 duringthe authentication process. In one embodiment, the relying party 3351may compare the location provided by the local secure transaction device3350 with the current GPS location reported by the client device 3300 toconfirm that the two location values match.

In addition, the relying party 3351 may transmit a secret code or otherauthentication data to the client device 3300, which the client device3300 may then relay to the local secure transaction device 3350 over thelocal secure channel to authenticate the client device. For example, inone embodiment, the relying party 3351 transmits a barcode to the clientdevice 3300 and a corresponding code to the local secure transactiondevice. The local secure transaction device 3350 may then read thebarcode (e.g., from the display of the client device 3300) using abarcode scanner or camera to perform authentication (i.e., comparing thecode received from the relying party with the code read from thebarcode). Alternatively, the local secure transaction device 3350 maytransmit the code read from the barcode to the relying party, which willthen confirm that the codes match. Conversely, the relying party 3351may transmit a secret code or other authentication data to the localsecure transaction device 3350 which will then relay the data to theclient device 3300 for authentication. Thus the local secure channel maybe used to exchange data for a variety of authentication techniques.

As mentioned, in one particular embodiment, the local secure transactiondevice 3350 is an ATM device. ATM machines are vulnerable devices,because their input/output controls (e.g., card-readers, keyboards,screens, cameras, etc) are exposed for the “outside world” and they arereadily available for tampering. For example, debit card records andpins can be easily stolen with low-tech devices, such as hidden magneticstripe readers, mirrors, and video cameras. In one embodiment, remoteauthentication techniques involving communication between the client3300 and relying party 3351 are used to provide significantly improvedauthentication for ATM machines. When integrated with this remoteauthentication, an ATM itself doesn't need to have legacy input/outputcontrols, such as card-reader, touchscreen or keyboard. All it requiresis a network connection and a slot to dispense cash. The authenticationper se can be performed on the customer's client device 3300 equippedwith the biometric authentication devices.

In one embodiment, for a cash withdrawal, the user would enter thevicinity of the ATM machine and initiate the remote authenticationapplication to authenticate to the relying party 3351. The user wouldthen enter the amount for withdrawal and swipe her finger using thefingerprint sensor on the mobile device (or user any other type ofauthentication as discussed below). When the user's presence andauthenticity are confirmed with the relying party 3351, a specifiedamount of money is dispensed from the ATM's slot.

This embodiment not only provides stronger authentication, but it alsoconverts complex and expensive ATMs into simple and reliable moneydispensers that are significantly cheaper to build and maintain. Thesenew ATM's may be used for a long time. They will not require frequentupdates, because all updates to the biometrics-related authenticationfeatures are introduced directly on the client devices 3300 and/or therelying party's secure transaction servers 3351.

Additional architectural details of one embodiment of the invention areillustrated in FIG. 34. As illustrated, the client device 3300 of thisembodiment includes a local authentication application 3304 whichcommunicates with both the local secure transaction device 3350 andrelying party 3351 to coordinate the various local authenticationtechniques described herein. In one embodiment, the local authenticationapplication 3304 establishes the local secure channel with the localsecure transaction device 3350 and an authentication engine 3310performs remote authentication with the relying party to verify that thelegitimate user is in possession of the client device 3300.

In one embodiment, the authentication engine 3310 performsauthentication by entering into a series of transactions with the securetransaction servers of the relying party as described in the co-pendingpatent applications mentioned above. For example, these transactions mayinclude an enrollment process in which a user enrolls with biometricdevices of a client to generate biometric template data (e.g., byswiping a finger, snapping a picture, recording a voice, etc).Enrollment may be under the direction of the secure transaction serversof the relying party or may be done autonomously by the user. The usermay then register the biometric devices with the secure transactionservers over the network and subsequently authenticate with thoseservers using data exchanged during the registration process (e.g.,encryption keys provisioned into the biometric devices).

In one embodiment, the authentication engine 3310 includes an assurancelevel calculation module 3306 for calculating an assurance levelcorresponding to a likelihood that the legitimate user is in possessionof the client device 3300. It may then use this assurance level todetermine whether the relying party 3351 should authorize a localtransaction at the local secure transaction device 3350 (e.g., such as afinancial transaction, a retail purchase, an access to confidentialinformation in the user's account, etc). In one embodiment, the relyingparty 3351 may specify the level of assurance required for a giventransaction. For example, for a financial transaction involving thetransfer of a significant amount of money, the relying party 3351 mayrequire a relatively higher assurance level than, for example, atransaction involving access to a user's account.

In one embodiment, the assurance level calculation module 3306 transmitsthe assurance level (e.g., specified as a value, percentage, code, etc)to the relying party 3351, without disclosing any confidential userinformation, thereby protecting the user's privacy. In anotherembodiment, the assurance level calculation module 3306 knows theassurance level required for the current transaction, determines whetherthe assurance level is sufficiently high, and transmits an indication ofwhether the transaction is permitted or denied to the relying party3351, once again, without disclosing the user's private information tothe relying party 3351.

In one embodiment, the communication between the client device 3300 andrelying party 3351 is secured via a secure communication module 3313,which may encrypt outgoing communication using a first key and decryptincoming communication using a second key. In a symmetric key encryptionscheme the first and second keys are the same. In an asymmetric keyencryption scheme, the keys are different. However, the underlyingprinciples of the invention are not limited to any particular type ofencryption.

In one embodiment, the assurance level calculation module 3306determines the assurance level based, at least in part, on current userauthentication results 3305 which may include the results of a currentor recent explicit user authentication via one or more explicit userauthentication devices 3320-3321. This may include, for example,fingerprint authentication via a fingerprint device, facial recognitionauthentication via a camera and facial recognition hardware/software,voice recognition via a microphone and voice recognitionhardware/software, retinal scanning using a camera and associatedhardware/software, a password/PIN entry by the end user via a keypad,and/or various other types of explicit user authentication devicesand/or techniques.

In one embodiment, a secure storage 3325 cryptographically protects thebiometric reference data records for each user authentication device3320-3321 (e.g., wrapping the data using a symmetric key to make thestorage 3325 secure). While the secure storage 3325 is illustratedoutside of the secure perimeter of the authentication device(s)3320-3321, in one embodiment, each authentication device 3320-3321 mayhave its own integrated secure storage to cryptographically protect thebiometric reference data records.

In addition to explicit user authentication, one embodiment of theauthentication engine 3310 collects data from sensors 3343 to be used bythe assurance calculation module 3306 to generate the assurance level.By way of example, the sensors 3343 may include location sensors such asGPS sensors to indicate a current location of the user. If the clientdevice 3300 is in an expected location such as the known vicinity of thelocal secure transaction device 3350, then this increases the likelihoodthat the user is the legitimate user. By contrast, if the GPS readingindicates that the user is not in the vicinity of the local securetransaction device 3350, then this indicates that the user initiatingthe transaction is not the legitimate user. Thus, in one embodiment, theassurance calculation module 3306 will tend to increase the assurancelevel if the user is in an expected location and decrease the assurancelevel if the user is in an unexpected location.

Various additional sensors 3343 such as temperature sensors, humiditysensors and accelerometers may be used to collect data relevant to userauthentication. For example, the temperature/humidity sensors mayprovide a current temperature/humidity which may be compared against theknown temperature/humidity for the location specified by the locationsensor. If the values are significantly different, then this mayindicate that the client device 3300 is being spoofed. The comparison ofthe asserted location and the temperature/humidity may be done at aremote server such as the secure transaction server(s) used by therelying party 3351. In another embodiment, accelerometers on the devicemay be used to measure the gait of the user and compare thesemeasurements against the known gait of the user. If the gaits match(within a specified threshold), then this increases the likelihood thatthe legitimate user is in possession of the client device 3300.

The local authentication application 3304 may be implemented in avariety of ways while still complying with the underlying principles ofthe invention. For example, in one embodiment, the local authenticationapplication 3304 is designed specifically for the relying party 3351.For example, if the relying party is a banking institution (e.g., WellsFargo®), then the local authentication application 3304 may be anapplication specifically designed by/for that bank. In anotherembodiment, the same local authentication application 3304 may be sharedamong a variety of relying parties, for example, as a universal localauthentication application. Moreover, while illustrated in FIG. 34 asseparate logical components, the authentication engine 3310 shown inFIG. 34 may be integrated within the local authentication application3304. In another embodiment, the local authentication application 3304may be a Web browser or an application executed within the Web browsercontext (e.g., when the user enters the vicinity of the local securetransaction device 3350 or connects to the relying party web page toinitiate the transaction).

The local authentication application 3304 may perform a variety of localfunctions depending on the implementation required by the relying party.For example, in one embodiment, the local authentication application3304 receives the secret code (or other authentication data) provided bythe relying party 3351 and securely transmits the secret code to thelocal secure transaction device 3350 for authentication (e.g., via abarcode or using other communication techniques as discussed above).Alternatively, in one embodiment, the user may manually enter the secretcode in the local secure transaction device 3350. Similarly,authentication data such as a secret code received by the local securetransaction device 3350 may be relayed to the local authenticationapplication 3304 which then relays the authentication data to theauthentication engine 3310 and/or relying party 3351 (e.g., as proof ofthe location of the client device 3300).

One embodiment of a method for performing authentication of a clientdevice is illustrated in FIG. 35. The method may be implemented on thearchitecture shown in FIGS. 33-34 but is not limited to any particularsystem architecture.

At 3501, the client enters the vicinity of the local secure transactiondevice (e.g., an ATM) and, at 3502, a secure connection is establishedwith the local secure transaction device over a local channel. Asmentioned, the local channel may be implemented using near fieldcommunication, Bluetooth, Wifi, or any other type of protocol supportedby both the client device and the local secure transaction device.Operation 3502 may not be required in some embodiments. For example,when the client device is capable of authenticating with the relyingparty with a high level of assurance that the legitimate user is inpossession of the client device and if the client device is capable ofverifying its current location to the relying party, then the localchannel may not be necessary.

At 3503, the client device authenticates with the relying party over thenetwork. Any available techniques for generating an assurance level thatthe legitimate user is in possession of the device may be used for thisoperation. For example, the user may perform explicit authentication byswiping a finger on a biometric fingerprint device, capturing a facialimage for facial recognition, and/or entering a secret code.Alternatively, non-intrusive authentication techniques may be performedsuch as determining whether the user has explicitly authenticated withthe client device recently (e.g., within a specified time period) and/orusing sensor data such as location data, temperature/pressure data,and/or accelerometer data.

Regardless of how the assurance level is generated, the results of theauthentication may be provided to the relying party over the network ina manner which protects the user's privacy (e.g., without providing datathat specifically identifies the client device). For example, aspreviously mentioned, the assurance level itself and/or an indication ofthe success or failure of authentication may be provided to the relyingparty, without disclosing any confidential user information.

If authentication is successful, determined at 3504, then at 3507 thelocal transaction is permitted. In one embodiment, this involves therelying party transmitting a signal instructing the local securetransaction device to perform one or more operations. For example, ifthe local secure transaction device is an ATM, then the operations mayinclude dispensing a user-specified amount of cash. If the local securetransaction device is a debit device (e.g., at a retail store or otherlocation where the user is making a purchase), then the signaltransmitted by the relying party may confirm payment for the transaction(and debit the user's account accordingly). It should be noted thatthese are merely illustrative examples. Various alternative applicationsmay be employed while still complying with the underlying principles ofthe invention.

If the authentication at 3504 is unsuccessful (e.g., because anacceptable assurance level was not reached), then at 3505, thetransaction is denied and/or one or more additional authenticationtechniques may be required. For example, the user may be required toprovide additional authentication using one or more additionaltechniques (e.g., entering a secret code if the initial authenticationwas a fingerprint, etc). If the additional techniques are sufficient,determined at 3506, then the transaction is permitted at 3507. If not,then the transaction is again denied and/or additional authenticationtechniques are attempted.

J. User Confirmation for Online Transactions

There are various scenarios where completing a transaction with arelying party may require approval from one or more other users. By wayof example, and not limitation, a parent may want to approve a financialtransaction initiated by a child, a commander may need to approve atransaction initiated by a soldier, a manager may need to approve abusiness transaction initiated by an employee, and a cryptographic keymanagement system may require multiple users to approve a particulartransaction before it can be committed.

One embodiment of the invention uses the techniques described herein forproviding strong authentication of users over a network to enablemulti-user confirmation applications. One such example is illustrated inFIG. 36 which shows a client device with remote authenticationcapabilities 3600 controlled by a user attempting to initiate atransaction with a relying party with secure transaction services 3650(hereinafter simply referred to as “relying party”). In one embodiment,the user of client device 3600 authenticates with the relying party 3650using one or more of the remote authentication techniques describedherein (e.g., providing biometric input such as swiping a finger on afingerprint sensor, entering a PIN or password, etc).

In the illustrated embodiment, other client devices 3601-3602 have userswho are registered with the relying party as “approvers” for the user ofclient device 3600. Thus, for certain types of transactions (e.g.,financial transactions involving amounts over a specified threshold),the relying party may require approval from the users of client devices3601-3602. As discussed below, the remote authentication techniquesdescribed herein are employed as part of the approval process.

In one embodiment, in response to a successful authentication by theuser of client device 3600, notification generation logic at the relyingparty 3650 sends a notification the other client devices 3601-3602 withusers registered as “approvers” indicating that the user of clientdevice 3600 is attempting to complete a transaction. The notificationmay be sent in a variety of ways in accordance with the underlyingprinciples of the invention. For example, if the client devices3601-3602 are mobile devices, then a push notification may be sent tothe client devices 3601-3602. Alternatively, or in addition, thenotification may be sent via email, text message (e.g., SMS), instantmessage, or any other technology capable of delivering a message to theclient devices 3601-3602.

In one embodiment, the notification includes details of the transactionbeing attempted by the user of client device 3600. For example, if thetransaction is a financial transaction, then the notification mayinclude the particular amount of money being processed and the type offinancial transaction being performed (e.g., withdrawal, transferbetween accounts, etc). Alternatively, the notification may include alink such as a hyperlink or other type of pointer directing the users ofclient devices 3601-3602 to an approval service on the relying party.Upon selection of the link, the users of client devices 3601-3602 may beprovided with details of the transaction (e.g., in a Web page or otheruseful format for providing information).

In one embodiment, upon responding to the notifications and reviewingthe details of the transaction, the users of client devices 3601-3602may confirm the request by performing remote authentication with therelying party (e.g., using the multi-factor authentication techniquesdescribed herein) and indicating an approval of the transaction.

Additional architectural details of a client device 3600-3602 employedin one embodiment of the invention are illustrated in FIG. 37. Inparticular, the client devices 3600-3602 of this embodiment includes asecure transaction application 3704 for communicating with the relyingparty 3650 and coordinating the transaction approval techniquesdescribed herein. The secure transaction application 3704 may be astand-alone application which interfaces with the authentication engine3710 via a secure application programming interface (API).Alternatively, the secure transaction application 3704 may beimplemented as a mobile device app or a Web browser plugin.

In addition to coordinating the user confirmation process describedherein, in one embodiment, the secure transaction application 3704ensures that the text displayed to each user is the actual text relatedto the transaction. For example, the application 3704 may display textwithin a secure window and ask the user to provide authentication toconfirm the transaction. The application may initiate a timer andperiodically verify the content of the current window being displayed tothe user (e.g., by generating a signature on the content). The period ofverification may be randomly chosen. Thus, the application continuallyensures that each user sees the valid transaction details in the window(thereby ensuring that the transaction text has not been modified by a“man in the middle” attack). If the application detects that the contenthas been tampered with it prevents the confirmation of the transactionfrom being generated.

In one embodiment, after the a user provides valid authentication (e.g.,swipes a finger on the fingerprint sensor), the client device identifiesthe user and generates a token (cryptographic signature) with thetransaction details (e.g., the displayed text) and a random challengeprovided from the relying party (e.g., the token may be a signature overthe transaction details and a nonce). This allows the relying party 3650ensure that the transaction details have not been modified between theserver and the client. In one embodiment, the application 3704 sends thegenerated token and username to the relying party, which then identifiesthe user with the username and verifies the token. If verificationsucceeds, a confirmation message is sent to the client and thetransaction is processed.

The above techniques may be implemented for both the transactionrequest/confirmation originating from the client device 3600 and for theapproval transactions originating from the users of client devices3601-3602.

Returning to FIG. 37, in one embodiment, authentication may be performedvia an authentication engine 3710 on the client devices 3600-3602designed to perform a series of transactions with the relying party 3650to remotely authenticate each user. For example, as described in theco-pending applications an authentication framework and associatedauthentication techniques may be employed in which a user enrolls withbiometric devices 3720-3721 of a client to generate biometric templatedata (e.g., by swiping a finger, snapping a picture, recording a voice,etc); registers the biometric devices with one or more relying parties3650 over a network (e.g., Websites or other relying parties equippedwith secure transaction services); and subsequently authenticates withthose relying parties 3650 using data exchanged during the registrationprocess (e.g., encryption keys provisioned into the biometric devices).In one embodiment, “registration” with relying parties includesexchanging symmetric or asymmetric keys with the relying party for eachuser authentication device 3720-3721 and storing the keys within asecure storage 3725 associated with each authentication devices3720-3721. A secure key provisioning protocol such as the DynamicSymmetric Key Provisioning Protocol (DSKPP) may be used to share keyswith the client over a secure communication channel (see, e.g., Requestfor Comments (RFC) 6063). However, the underlying principles of theinvention are not limited to any particular key provisioning protocol.

During the authentication phase, the keys are used, for example, togenerate signatures, verify signatures, and/or encrypt communicationbetween the clients 3600-3602 and the relying party 3650. Onceauthenticated, the user is permitted to perform one or more onlinetransactions. In addition, in one embodiment, sensitive information suchas fingerprint data and other data which may uniquely identify the usermay be retained locally on the user's client device (e.g., smartphone,notebook computer, etc) to protect the user's privacy.

In one embodiment, the authentication engine 110 includes an assurancelevel calculation module 3706 for calculating an assurance levelcorresponding to a likelihood that the legitimate user is in possessionof the client device 100. It may then use this assurance level todetermine whether the relying party 3650 should authorize a currenttransaction. In one embodiment, the relying party 3650 may specify thelevel of assurance required for a given transaction. For example, for afinancial transaction involving the transfer of a significant amount ofmoney, the relying party 3650 may require a relatively higher assurancelevel than, for example, a transaction involving no exchange of money ormere access to a user information.

In one embodiment, the assurance level calculation module 106 transmitsthe assurance level (e.g., specified as a value, percentage, code, etc)to the relying party 3650, without disclosing any confidential userinformation, thereby protecting the user's privacy. In anotherembodiment, the assurance level calculation module 3706 knows theassurance level required for the current transaction, determines whetherthe assurance level is sufficiently high, and transmits an indication ofwhether the transaction is permitted or denied to the relying party 3650(without disclosing the user's private information to the relying party3650).

In one embodiment, the communication between the client devices3600-3602 and relying party 3650 is secured via a secure communicationmodule 3713, which may encrypt outgoing communication using a first keyand decrypt incoming communication using a second key. In a symmetrickey encryption scheme the first and second keys are the same. In anasymmetric key encryption scheme, the keys are different. However, theunderlying principles of the invention are not limited to any particulartype of encryption.

In one embodiment, the assurance level calculation module 3706determines the assurance level based, at least in part, on current userauthentication results 3705 which may include the results of a currentor recent explicit user authentication via one or more explicit userauthentication devices 3720-3721. This may include, for example,fingerprint authentication via a fingerprint device, facial recognitionauthentication via a camera and facial recognition hardware/software,voice recognition via a microphone and voice recognitionhardware/software, retinal scanning using a camera and associatedhardware/software, a password/PIN entry by the end user via a keypad,and/or various other types of explicit user authentication devicesand/or techniques.

In one embodiment, the secure storage 3725 cryptographically protectsthe biometric reference data records for each user authentication device3720-3721 (e.g., wrapping the data using a symmetric key to make thestorage 3725 secure). While the secure storage 3725 is illustratedoutside of the secure perimeter of the authentication device(s)3720-3721, in one embodiment, each authentication device 3720-3721 mayhave its own integrated secure storage to cryptographically protect thebiometric reference data records.

In addition to explicit user authentication, one embodiment of theauthentication engine 3710 performs non-intrusive authentication bycollecting data from sensors 3743 to be used by the assurancecalculation module 3706 to generate the assurance level. By way ofexample, the sensors 3743 may include location sensors such as GPSsensors to indicate a current location of the user. If the clientdevices 3600-3602 are in an expected location such as the known vicinity(e.g., a “home” or “office” location), then this increases thelikelihood that the user is the legitimate user. By contrast, if the GPSreading indicates that the user is not at an expected location, thenthis indicates that the user initiating the transaction is not thelegitimate user. Thus, in one embodiment, the assurance calculationmodule 3706 will increase the assurance level if the user is in anexpected location and decrease the assurance level if the user is in anunexpected location.

Various additional sensors 3743 such as temperature sensors, humiditysensors and accelerometers may be used to collect data relevant to userauthentication. For example, the temperature/humidity sensors mayprovide a current temperature/humidity which may be compared against theknown temperature/humidity for the location specified by the locationsensor. If the values are significantly different, then this mayindicate that the client devices 3600-3602 are being spoofed. Thecomparison of the asserted location and the temperature/humidity may bedone at a remote server such as the secure transaction server(s) used bythe relying party 3650. In another embodiment, accelerometers on thedevice may be used to measure the gait of the user and compare thesemeasurements against the known gait of the user. If the gaits match(within a specified threshold), then this increases the likelihood thatthe legitimate user is in possession of the client device 3600-3602.

Another non-intrusive authentication technique comprises measuring anamount of time which has elapsed since the last successful userauthentication. For example, if the user has very recently performed anexplicit user authentication (e.g., swiping a finger on a fingerprintreader just a few minutes earlier), then this will tend to indicate thatthe legitimate user is still in possession of the client device (therebyresulting in a high baseline assurance level). By contrast, if the lastexplicit authentication has been several hours or several days earlier,then a new explicit user authentication may be required to reach anacceptable assurance level.

A method in accordance with one embodiment of the invention isillustrated in FIG. 38. At 3801, the user of a client triggers atransaction which requires a confirmation by N other users. For example,the user's account at the relying party may indicate that certain typesof transactions initiated by the user (or all transactions) requireconfirmation by one or more other users. For example, the user's accountmay identify the user as a minor, requiring authorization by one or moreparents or guardians. The user is also authenticated at 3801 byimplementing one or more of the authentication techniques describedherein.

At 3802, the server selects N other users who must confirm thetransaction triggered by the user. For example, upon detecting theinitiation of the transaction by the user, the relying party may queryits user database to determine that the transaction requiresconfirmation and the identity of the users who can confirm thetransaction. In one embodiment, a subset of all of the users who arecapable of confirming the transaction may actually confirm thetransaction. For example, if the user is a minor with two parents then,in one embodiment, the notification may be sent to both parents, but aconfirmation by either parent will allow the transaction to proceed.Similarly, there may be 10 users who are authorized to confirm abusiness transaction, but only 2 confirmations are required to allow thetransaction to proceed.

In one embodiment, a push notification may be sent to the client devicesof those users who can confirm the transaction (e.g., if the users haveclient devices capable of receiving push notifications). Alternatively,or in addition, the notification may be sent via email, text message(e.g., SMS), instant message, or any other technology capable ofdelivering a message to the client devices. In one embodiment, a usermay be registered with the server to receive confirmation messagesthrough two or more communication channels. For example, a user mayreceive both a push notification and an email containing theconfirmation request.

Regardless of how the confirmation request is sent, at 3803 all or asubset of the N users perform authentication with the server as part ofthe confirmation process. Any remote authentication techniques may beemployed to authenticate the users and confirm the transaction. Forexample, a user may confirm a transaction by providing biometric data toa biometric device on the client which has been previously registeredwith the relying party (e.g., swiping a finger on a fingerprintscanner). As mentioned above, the details associated with thetransaction may be provided to the users via a secure transactionapplication capable of securely displaying text and other information(i.e., ensuring that when a user confirms the transaction, he/she hasviewed the actual, unaltered text describing the transaction).

Once a minimum specified number of users have confirmed the request,determined at 3804, then the transaction is permitted at 3807. Oneembodiment of the method starts a confirmation timer to measure theamount of elapsed time since the confirmation requests were sent. Oncethe confirmation timer has reached a threshold value (e.g., a few hours,a day, etc.), determined at 3805, the transaction is disallowed at 3806.Until the timer threshold is reached, the method waits at 3804 for theminimum specified number of users to confirm the request.

K. System and Method for Delegating Trust

Existing authentication systems do not allow new authenticators to beenabled using registered authenticators on trusted clients. For example,if a user has a fingerprint sensor on her phone which she has registeredwith number of websites and then she installs a voice authenticator onher phone, she has no way to automatically register her voiceauthenticator with all the websites she was using with fingerprintsensor. Rather, in this case, the user must step through the sameenrollment and registration process to register the voice authenticatorwith the relying party. Similarly, if the user purchases a new devicewith a new set of authenticators, the user must re-enroll and reregisterall of the new authenticators with the server.

The embodiments of the invention described below allow a user to easilyenable and register the authenticator(s) on a new client device using atrusted client device that is already enabled and registered with one ormore relying parties. In particular, these embodiments may be used toenable new authenticators, enable new client devices, and keep theregistrations in sync between multiple client devices.

FIG. 39 provide a high level overview of trust delegation in accordancewith one embodiment of the invention. A trusted device 3902, i.e., adevice which has an authenticator which is registered with one or morerelying parties 3950, establishes a secure connection with the user'snew client device 3900. The particular manner in which the secureconnection is established is not pertinent to the underlying principlesof the invention. Various techniques may be used such as near fieldcommunication (NFC), Bluetooth, Wifi Direct, using a quick response (QR)code and establishing an HTTPS connection. In one embodiment, thedevices may exchange a large random token (LRT) needed for a secureconnection and may establish a connection by providing the captured LRTto an online service and bootstrap a secure communication via theservice.

In one embodiment, once the secure connection is established between thetrusted client device 3902 and new client device 3900, a secure protocolis implemented (described in detail below) to transfer and integrate theregistration data from the trusted device to the new device. Once theregistrations have been transferred, another secure protocol isimplemented (e.g., HTTPS in one embodiment) between the new clientdevice 3900 and relying parties 3950 to verify the registrations.

While the embodiments described herein focus on transferringauthentication data used for authentication transactions with a relyingparty 3950, the relying party may not be required for complying with theunderlying principles of the invention. For example, the trusted device3902 may establish a secure connection to provide authentication data tothe new client device 3900 without any relying party involved in thesystem (e.g., to provide authentication data for authenticating locallywith the new client device 3900).

As illustrated in FIG. 40, a trust delegation module 4000-4001 may beexecuted on the new device 3900 and trusted device 3902, respectively,to establish the secure connection, exchange the registrations, andverify the registrations with a secure transaction service 4004 on eachrelying party 3950. As used herein, a “trusted authenticator” is anauthenticator that a user has already registered with one or morerelying parties. A new “new authenticator” is one which the user wishesto enable with all the relying party registrations currently being usedwith the trusted authenticator. Thus, the authentication engine 3711 isconsidered a trusted authenticator if it has previously registered oneor more user authentication devices 3720-3721 with a relying party. Thegoal of one embodiment is to turn the authentication engine 3710 of thenew device 3900 from a new authenticator into a trusted authenticator. A“trusted device” is one which has a trusted authenticator and a “newdevice” is one which has a new authenticator.

Trust delegation refers to the process of enabling the new authenticatorusing a trusted authenticator. Thus, the preconditions of trustdelegation are: the user has a trusted device; the user has a newdevice; the user wants to delegate trust from trusted device to newdevice.

Returning to FIG. 40, in one embodiment, the user initiates the trustdelegation application 4000 on the new client device 3900 and the trustdelegation application 4001 on the trusted client device to establishthe initial secure connection. In one embodiment, the trust delegationapplications may be mobile device apps, specifically designed to performthe trust delegation operations described herein. In another embodiment,the trust delegation applications may be browser plugins executed inresponse to the user indicating that he/she wishes to perform trustdelegation (e.g., via a web page with embedded Javascript or otherapplet or executable program code). Moreover, the trust delegationapplications 4000-4001 may be software modules within a largerapplication such as an authentication application designed to manageauthentications with relying parties. It should be noted, however, thatthe underlying principles of the invention are not limited to anyparticular implementation of the trust delegation applications4000-4001.

In one embodiment, to approve the trust delegation operations on thetrusted device 3902, the user locally authenticates with theauthentication engine 3711 on the trusted device (e.g., providingbiometric input to a user authentication device 3722-3723). Similarly,in one embodiment, the user may locally authenticate with theauthentication engine 3710 on the new client device 3900. These twoauthentication steps may provide authorization for the trust delegationapplications 4000-4001 to perform the delegation process.

As mentioned, the trust delegation applications 4000-4001 may utilizeany of the communication interfaces available on their respective clientdevices 3900, 3902 to establish a secure connection (e.g., Bluetoothinterfaces for a Bluetooth connection, NFC interfaces for an NFCconnection, etc).

Once the secure connection is established, in one embodiment, the trustdelegation application 4001 of the trusted client 3902 provides dataindicating the number of keys (N) on the trusted client which areregistered with relying parties. In response, in one embodiment, thetrust delegation application 4000 generates N new device key pairs(ND_Uauth) including one private key (ND_Uauth.priv) and one public key(ND_Uauth.pub) and sends the N new device pubic keys to the trustdelegation application 4001 on the trusted device 3902.

In one embodiment, the trust delegation application 4001 then signs eachof the N new device public keys with its corresponding trusted deviceprivate key (TD_Uauth.priv) to generate a signature (TD_Uauth.sig)associated with each of the N new device public keys. In one embodiment,the “corresponding” private key is the private key associated with aparticular registration with a corresponding relying party. The trustdelegation application 4001 may also insert a timestamp into thegenerated signature which may subsequently be used by the relying partyto verify exactly when the trust delegation occurred. In one embodiment,the trust delegation application 4001 of the trusted client 3902 thentransmits each of the generated signatures along with other registrationdata associated with each relying party to the trust delegationapplication 4000 on the new client 3900. The data for each relying partymay include, one or more relying party ID codes (e.g., application IDcodes identifying services at the relying party), user names registeredfor the user at the relying party, key ID codes used by the relyingparty to locate the appropriate keys during authentication, and anyother data relevant to the authentication process.

In one embodiment, once the trust delegation application 4000 receivesthe signatures and other registration data, it integrates this data intothe local secure storage device 3725 so that it may be subsequently usedwhen the new client device 3900 connects to the relying party 3950.

In one embodiment, after the registration data base been stored in thelocal secure storage 3725, a series of bootstrapping operations may beperformed by the trust delegation application 4000 to leverage thedelegated registrations on the new client device 3900 with relyingparties (e.g., websites, services, etc) that had previously beenregistered with the trusted client device 3902. Alternatively, thedescribed bootstrapping operations may be performed by theauthentication engine 3710 itself (via direct communication with thesecure transaction service 4004 as shown in FIG. 40). The underlyingprinciples of the invention remain the same regardless of whichparticular software component on the new client device 3900 performs theoperations.

In particular, in one embodiment, the secure transaction service 4004 ofthe relying party 3950 detects that there are registrations on the newclient device 3900 using the remote authentication protocol supported bythe secure transaction service 4002 and trust delegation application4000. In one embodiment, the user may initially be asked by the securetransaction service 4004 to perform biometric authentication or otherform of authentication (e.g., entering a secure code) from the newclient device 3900. In addition, at this stage, the secure transactionservice 4004 may verify the timestamp inserted into the signature(s) andensure that the timestamp is not older than a threshold amount of time.

Assuming that the user successfully provides biometric or otherauthentication data at an acceptable assurance level, the trustdelegation application 4000 and/or the new authenticator 3710 prepare aresponse including the following three assertions:

1. An attestation over the new device public key associated with therelying party (ND_Uauth.pub). In one embodiment, the attestationcomprises a signature generated over the public key (e.g., using apublic key of the relying party).

2. An assertion using the new device private key associated with therelying party (ND_Uauth.priv). In one embodiment, to generate theassertion, the private key is used to generate a signature over contentknown by the relying party (e.g., such as a random challenge sent fromthe relying party). Because the relying party is provided with thepublic key (in step 1), it can decrypt the content, thereby verifyingthat the private key was used to encrypt the content.

3. The signature previously generated by the trusted client device andassociated with the new device public key for this particular relyingparty (TD_Uauth.sig) along with the key ID used by the relying party(TD_Uauth.keyid) to locate the public key (e.g., so that it may use thekey ID to query its secure transaction database 4025 to retrieve thepublic key).

In one embodiment, all of the above data is then transmitted to thesecure transaction service 4004 of the relying party in a remoteauthentication response.

In one embodiment, after receiving the above assertions, the securetransaction service 4004 may perform the following verifications:

1. Locate the trusted device's public key (TD_Uauth.pub) using the keyID;

2. Verify the signature generated by the trusted device (TD_Uauth.sig)using the trusted device's public key (TD_Uauth.pub);

3. Verify the signature generated by the new device's private key(ND_Uauth.sig) using the new device's public key (ND_Uauth.pub); and

4. Verify the attestation over the new device public key associated withthe relying party (ND_Uauth.pub). In one embodiment, this verificationis performed using the private key of the relying party.

One embodiment of a method for securely transferring registration datafrom a trusted device to a new device is illustrated in FIG. 41 and oneembodiment of a method for verifying the registration data with therelying party is illustrated in FIG. 42. While these methods may beimplemented within the context of the system architectures shown inFIGS. 39-40, the underlying principles of the invention are not limitedto any particular system architecture.

Turning first to FIG. 41, at 4101, the new devices establishes a securecommunication channel with the trusted device and determines the number(N) of key pairs to generate. As mentioned, this may be the number ofkey pairs registered by the trusted device with relying parties.

At 4102, the new device generates N new public/private key pairs. In analternate implementation which utilizes symmetric keys, the new devicemay generate a single (symmetric) key to be shared with the relyingparty. At 4103, the N public keys are sent to the trusted device and, at4104, the trusted device signs each public key with a correspondingprivate key to generate a signature. At 4105, the signatures are sent tothe new device with other registration data for the relying party (e.g.,key IDs, application IDs, etc). Finally, at 4106, all of theregistration data and signatures are integrated within the local securedatabase(s) used by the authentication engine.

Turning now to FIG. 42, at 4201 at new client (having already performedthe delegation operations from FIG. 41) establishes a secure connectionwith the relying party. At 4202, the relying party detects that thereare existing registrations which have been delegated to the new device.In response, at 4203, the relying party makes an authentication requestto the new device. The user may then authenticate using one or morebiometric or other authentication techniques. As discussed above, at4204, the new device prepares a response which includes an attestationover the new device public key, a signature generated with the newdevice private key (e.g., over a challenge), and the signature generatedwith the trusted device's private key and the associated key ID. At 4205all of the data in the response is transmitted to the relying party and,at 4206, the relying party verifies the data contained in the response(see above for details of one embodiment). If the verification issuccessful, then at 4207 the transaction being attempted by the user ispermitted.

The techniques described herein may be used to delegate trust betweentwo authenticators on different devices (as described above). Inaddition, in one embodiment, these techniques may be used to delegatetrust between two authenticators on the same device. In this case, thesecure connection between two devices does not need to be establishedbut all of the other operations may be performed between the twoauthenticators within the device.

Moreover, it should be noted that some of the operations involved can beimplemented in various ways. For example the secure protocol fordelegating trust may be initiated by trusted device rather than the newdevice. In either case, the new device (or, more specifically, theauthenticator on the new device) may generate a number of new key pairs(ND_Uauth) and the authenticator on the trusted device may sign thepublic keys of these key pairs.

L. System and Method for Privacy-Enhanced Data Synchronization

Current systems exist for synchronizing data between multiple clientdevices using cloud services. When a user creates a new document on adevice (e.g., snaps a picture, creates a word processing document, etc)or modifies an existing document, a cloud service to which the user issubscribed will typically store a copy of the new/modified document “inthe cloud.” When the user accesses the cloud service from a seconddevice (e.g., a computer at work or a another device used by a differentfamily member), the cloud service may be configured to synchronize thedevice.

One problem which exists is that data is frequently stored in the cloudservice in an unencrypted format thereby making the data vulnerable tovarious types of cyber attacks and queries by federal agencies.

The embodiments of the invention described below provide a set ofprotocols and techniques which allow data to be synchronized amongdevices in a privacy-enhanced manner. Using these protocols andtechniques, cloud services never have access to data in plaintext (e.g.,unencrypted format), thereby preserving the user's privacy.

As an initial matter, it should be noted that the techniques describedbelow for synchronizing data among devices do not rely on the advancedauthentication techniques described herein. For example, thesesynchronizing techniques may be employed outside of the context of asystem for remote user authentication as described for other embodimentsof the invention. However, these synchronization techniques may be usedto perform synchronization for these remote user authenticationembodiments. For example, in one embodiment, the registration data foreach Website or other online service visited by the user may besynchronized among multiple devices using these synchronizationtechniques.

As used herein, a “circle” means a network of devices trusted by a userand “circle-id” means an identifier identifying a circle (e.g., onewhich cannot be easily guessed). A “circle-cloud” means an onlineservice which is used to store information about circles andtrust-chains (defined below) and acts as a communication hub for clientdevices. In one embodiment, the circle-cloud does not store anyconfidential data (at least not in an unencrypted format). The term“d.pub” refers to a device's public key, “d.priv” refers to the device'sprivate key and d.pub/d.priv refers to an asymmetric public/private keypair of a device d. In one embodiment, d.priv never leaves device d. The“trust-chain” means the persistent data stored on the circle-cloudcontaining information about devices trusted by user and theirrelationships. A “circle-channel” means a secure communication channelprovided by the circle-cloud that is used by two (or more) devices toexchange and synchronize data between them.

One embodiment of the invention comprises a protocol and associatedtechniques for allowing a new user device to (a) join a circle and (b)subsequently synchronize with the circle. These embodiments will bedescribed with respect to FIG. 43 which shows a three client devices4301-4303 each with a privacy sync application 4311-4313, respectively,for implementing the protocols and techniques described herein andsecure data storage 4321-4332, respectively, for storing data used forjoining and synchronizing. Device 4301 is sometimes referred to hereinas device d1, device 4302 is sometimes referred to as device d2, anddevice 4303 is sometimes referred to as device d3.

In one embodiment the joining and synchronizing are performed through acircle cloud 4350 which includes a plurality of storage servers. A trustchain 4360 within the circle cloud 4350 maintains data defining trustrelationships between the devices 4301-4303 as described below. Thecircle channel 4370 comprises a secure communication channel provided bythe circle-cloud that is used by two or more devices to exchange andsynchronize data.

a. Joining the Circle

A device 4302 (d2) joins an existing network of devices 4301 (d1) and4303 (d3) that belong to the user (i.e., the “circle” of trusteddevices). A device 4302 can join an existing circle only if anotherdevice 4301, which is already part of that circle, authorizes it.

One embodiment of a method for authorizing a new device 4302 using atrusted device 4301 is illustrated in FIG. 44. At 4401 a user authorizesthe new device 4302 on an existing trusted device 4301. For example, inone embodiment, the user may initiate its privacy sync application 4311on the trusted device 4301 and the privacy sync application 4312 on thenew client device 4302.

At 4402, in one embodiment, the privacy sync applications 4311-4312cause the devices 4301-4302 to establish a secure connection. Varioustechniques may be used to establish the secure connection such as nearfield communication (NFC), Bluetooth, Wifi Direct, using a quickresponse (QR) code and establishing an HTTPS connection.

At 4403, device 4301 sends secure data to the new device 4302, referredto herein as “join1_data.” In one embodiment, the join1_data includesthe following fields: {d1.pub, sk.sym, circle-id}, where d1.pub is thepublic key of device 4301, sk.sym is a randomly-generated session keygenerated by device 4301, and the circle-id is a unique identificationcode identifying the circle which device 4302 is joining.

At 4404, device 4302 reads the join1_data and prepares a response whichmay include the following:

-   -   HMAC (sk.sym, d2.pub|T)|d2.pub|T where T is a timestamp    -   trust-block1=S(d2.priv, d1.pub)|d1.pub|d2.pub        Note that HMAC stands for Hash-Based Message Authentication        Code. In the above embodiment, the HMAC is generated by        concatenating the public key of device 4302 with a timestamp and        protecting the integrity of the result with sk.sym using HMAC or        a similar algorithm. In addition, trust-block1 includes a        signature generated with device 4302's private key over device        4301's public key. In one embodiment, the trust-block1 entry        also includes a timestamp (T).

Returning to FIG. 44, At 4405 device 4302 securely connects to thecircle-cloud 4350 and transmits the response which includes the HMAC andtrust-block1. The circle-cloud 4350 stores the data received by device4301 and waits for device 4301 to connect.

At 4406, device 4301 connects to the circle cloud using the circle-id,validates the integrity of the data contained in device 4302's responsefrom operation 4405, and generates trust-block2. In particular, in oneembodiment, device 4301 reads and validates the integrity of d2.pub andT using sk.sym (e.g., using sk.sym to decrypt d2.pub and T). Device 4301then signs d2.pub using its own private key, d1.priv and generatestrust-block2=S(d1.priv, d2.pub)|d2.pub|d1.pub, which comprises asignature generated over d2.pub with d1 priv. In one embodiment,trust-block2 also includes a timestamp (T). The device 4301 then sendsthe above data including trust-block2 to the circle cloud 4350.

At 4407, the circle-cloud 4350 adds both trust-blocks to trust-chain4360. In one embodiment, after the above operations, device 4302 joinsthe circle associated with circle-id. All devices 4301, 4303 in thiscircle trust device 4302 and device 4302 trusts all of these devices.Note that any trusted device can authorize a new device using thetechniques described herein.

b. Sync with Circle

During this process the devices 4301-4303, belonging to the same circle,sync data between them. There can be different application-specificsub-protocols implemented on top of this process. For example, an onlinecloud storage application may want to keep user's data synchronized onall devices and keep the encrypted copy on circle-cloud. Anotherapplication may propagate messages to the devices in the circle. Forexample, in one embodiment, registration data used by one device toauthenticate with a remote relying party may be synchronized across alldevices in the circle. Various other applications and sub-protocols maybe implemented while still complying with the underlying principles ofthe invention. All such sub-protocols may use the foundational processblocks described below.

Trust-Chain

As demonstrated in the “Join the Circle” process (FIG. 44), what goesinto trust-chain 4360 a proof which asserts that device2 is trusted bydevice1. Thus, a trust-chain 4360 is a chain of authorization blockseach of which asserts a trust relationship between two devices. In oneembodiment, a trust-chain is commutative, meaning that if device 4301trusts device 4302 then device 4302 trusts device 4301. The trust-chain4360 is considered to be broken if there is a block asserting thatdevice 4301 trusts device 4302 and there is no block asserting thatdevice 4302 trusts device 4301. In one embodiment, the trust-chain 4360is also transitive, meaning that if device 4301 trusts device 4302 anddevice 4302 trusts device 4303 then device 4301 trusts device 4303. Inone embodiment, the trust-chain is circle-id specific and it does notcontain any confidential information about devices.

In one embodiment, the trust chain 4360 comprises a plurality of trustblocks and each block includes the following data: {di.pub, dj.pub,S(di.priv, dj.pub), S(dj.priv, di.pub)}—i.e., the public keys of eachdevice and a signature generated using the private key of each deviceover the public key of each other device.

The above assertion means that device di trusts device dj and viceversa. In one embodiment, the trust-chain 4360 is used by devices4301-4302 to determine and verify which devices are in the circle. Afterthe devices verify that they are in the same circle, they may use thecircle-channel 4370 to synchronize encrypted data between them.

In one embodiment, to determine whether device di is in the same circleas device dj the following operations are performed: (a) construct adirectional graph where each node is a device in trust-chain and eacharrow corresponds to a block in trust-chain and (b) determine if thereis a direct path connecting di and dj.

Circle-Channel

In one embodiment, the process illustrated in FIG. 45 is implemented tosynchronize data between other devices in the same circle. In theillustrated example, device 4301 (d1) is the device that has new dataand wants to send to other devices. At 4501, device 4301 downloads thetrust-chain 4360 associated with the circle-id, identifies the otherdevices in the same circle from the trust-chain (e.g., devices4302-4303), and obtains the public keys of the other devices in the samecircle using the trust-chain.

At 4502, the device 4301 generates a random encryption key (REK) (e.g.,using known techniques for random number generation). At 4503, device4301 derives mutual session keys (SK) for each of the other devices inthe circle. In one embodiment, device 4301 derives the SKs using theDiffie-Hellman key exchange algorithm with respect to each of the otherothers devices. Diffie-Hellman is a well known algorithm which allowstwo parties that have no prior knowledge of each other to jointlyestablish a shared secret key. In the instant case, for example, if afirst device has a key pair and provides its public key to a seconddevice, then the second device can automatically derive a new key (SK inthe instant application) independently using its private key and thefirst device's public key (and vice versa). In one embodiment, device4301 uses these techniques to generate a different SK for each otherdevice 4302, 4303.

At 4504, the device 4301 encrypts REK with each derived SK for eachdevice and binds the appropriate public keys with them. For example, fora device d1 which generates SKi and SKj for devices di and dj,respectively, it uses the session keys to encrypt REK as follows:

-   -   {d1.pub, di.pub, E(SKi, REK)} (for device di)    -   {d1.pub, dj.pub, E(SKj, REK)} (for device dj)        In at the end of the process, each of the devices di and dj are        able to decrypt REK using their respective session keys (which        have been independently derived by each device using        Diffie-Hellman as discussed above).

At 4505, device 4301 encrypts the data to be synchronized with REK—i.e.,E(REK, data-to-be-synced). As mentioned, any data may be synchronized inthis manner such as multimedia files, productivity document, and/orclient configuration data (e.g., relying party registration data asdiscussed above), to name a few.

At 4507, device 4301 provides to the circle channel the REK encryptedwith each SK and the data to be synchronized, encrypted with REK:

-   -   [{d1.pub, di.pub, E(SKi, REK)}, {d1.pub, dj.pub, E(SKj, REK)}, .        . . ]    -   E(REK, data-to-be-synced)

After the data has been provided to the circle-channel, at 4506individual devices in the same circle download the record correspondingto their public key (e.g., {d1.pub, di.pub, E(SKi, REK)} for device di),derive the same SK (e.g., SKi), decrypt REK and use REK to decrypt thedata to be synchronized.

In one embodiment, a “join circle” operation as described above mayrequire user authentication on both device1 and device2. When thisprotocol is implemented using the remote authentication techniquesdescribed herein, a user may be required to, for example, “swipe” afinger to authenticate on both devices to initiate and complete the“join circle” process. By contrast, in one embodiment, syncing databetween devices as described may not require user authentication.

The protocol and associated techniques described herein allow networksof devices to be built that trust each other. Significantly, all datatransmitted to and from the cloud and stored within the cloud isencrypted. Consequently, data may be synchronized among the plurality ofdevices without storing any confidential data on cloud, resulting inimproved user privacy protection.

The embodiments of the invention described above implement a privatesynchronization protocol for device synchronization where theparticipating cloud storage cannot view any of the user's data inplaintext (i.e., data is encrypted in the cloud). These embodimentsincludes various novel and beneficial features including, but notlimited to:

-   -   A system and method implementing a device synchronization        protocol where device has a public and private key for        authorizing other devices.    -   A system and method which implement a trust-chain to indicate        trust relationships between devices within the same circle.    -   A system and method where devices use Diffie-Hellman or similar        key exchange algorithms to generate mutual session keys and        encrypt data with those keys.    -   A system and method where a hash of a circle-id is stored in a        circle-cloud instead of on the device itself.    -   A system and method where circle-cloud uses a challenge response        protocol to authenticate a device before allowing it to put any        data in circle's circle-channel.    -   A system and method where a permanent circle group key is used        to encrypt the syncing data    -   An application which uses the described private synchronization        protocols to share user's data (documents, files, photos, etc)        among multiple devices and stores the encrypted backup of data        on the cloud.    -   A system and method where the device's private key (d.priv) and        all operations that use this key are implemented inside an        authenticator for remotely authenticating a user over a network.    -   An application which uses the described private synchronization        protocols in combination with the embodiments of the invention        for performing user controlled trust delegation to a new device        to share authenticator registrations among a user's devices.    -   An application which uses the described private synchronization        protocols in combination with the embodiments of the invention        for performing user controlled trust delegation to a new device        to share new registrations among a user's devices where a user        doesn't need to authenticate with an authenticator every time        when a new registration is being delegated to other devices.    -   A set of authenticators belonging to the same user and forming a        circle, where these authenticators are using the private        synchronization protocols described above to sync authentication        key pairs in order to share registrations of a single        authenticator with other authenticators belonging to the same        circle.

M. Exemplary System Architectures

It should be noted that the term “relying party” is used herein torefer, not merely to the entity with which a user transaction isattempted (e.g., a Website or online service performing usertransactions), but also to the secure transaction servers implemented onbehalf of that entity which may performed the underlying authenticationtechniques described herein. The secure transaction servers may be ownedand/or under the control of the relying party or may be under thecontrol of a third party offering secure transaction services to therelying party as part of a business arrangement. These distinctions arespecified in FIGS. 46A-B discussed below which show that the “relyingparty” may include Websites 4631 and other network services 4651 as wellas the secure transaction servers 4632-4633 for performing theauthentication techniques on behalf of the websites and networkservices.

In particular, FIGS. 46A-B illustrate two embodiments of a systemarchitecture comprising client-side and server-side components forauthenticating a user. The embodiment shown in FIG. 46A uses a browserplugin-based architecture for communicating with a website while theembodiment shown in FIG. 46B does not require a browser. The variousadvanced authentication techniques and associated applications describedherein may be implemented on either of these system architectures. Forexample, the authentication engines within client devices describedabove (e.g., 230) may be implemented as part of the secure transactionservice 4601 including interface 4602. It should be noted, however, thatthe embodiments described above may be implemented using logicalarrangements of hardware and software other than those shown in FIGS.46A-B.

Turning to FIG. 46A, the illustrated embodiment includes a client 4600equipped with one or more authentication devices 4610-4612 for enrollingand authenticating an end user. As mentioned above, the authenticationdevices 4610-4612 may include biometric devices such as fingerprintsensors, voice recognition hardware/software (e.g., a microphone andassociated software for recognizing a user's voice), facial recognitionhardware/software (e.g., a camera and associated software forrecognizing a user's face), and optical recognition capabilities (e.g.,an optical scanner and associated software for scanning the retina of auser) and non-biometric devices such as a trusted platform modules(TPMs) and smartcards. A user may enroll the biometric devices byproviding biometric data (e.g., swiping a finger on the fingerprintdevice) which the secure transaction service 4601 may store as biometrictemplate data in secure storage 4620 (via interface 4602).

While the secure storage 4620 is illustrated outside of the secureperimeter of the authentication device(s) 4610-4612, in one embodiment,each authentication device 4610-4612 may have its own integrated securestorage. Additionally, each authentication device 4610-4612 maycryptographically protect the biometric reference data records (e.g.,wrapping them using a symmetric key to make the storage 4620 secure).

The authentication devices 4610-4612 are communicatively coupled to theclient through an interface 4602 (e.g., an application programminginterface or API) exposed by a secure transaction service 4601. Thesecure transaction service 4601 is a secure application forcommunicating with one or more secure transaction servers 4632-4633 overa network and for interfacing with a secure transaction plugin 4605executed within the context of a web browser 4604. As illustrated, theInterface 4602 may also provide secure access to a secure storage device4620 on the client 4600 which stores information related to each of theauthentication devices 4610-4612 such as a device identification code,user identification code, user enrollment data (e.g., scannedfingerprint or other biometric data), and keys used to perform thesecure authentication techniques described herein. For example, asdiscussed in detail below, a unique key may be stored into each of theauthentication devices and used when communicating to servers 4630 overa network such as the Internet.

In addition to enrollment of devices, the secure transaction service4601 may then register the biometric devices with the secure transactionservers 4632-4633 over the network and subsequently authenticate withthose servers using data exchanged during the registration process(e.g., encryption keys provisioned into the biometric devices). Theauthentication process may include any of the authentication techniquesdescribed herein (e.g., generating an assurance level on the client 4600based on explicit or non-intrusive authentication techniques andtransmitting the results to the secure transaction servers 4632-4633).

As discussed below, certain types of network transactions are supportedby the secure transaction plugin 4605 such as HTTP or HTTPS transactionswith websites 4631 or other servers. In one embodiment, the securetransaction plugin is initiated in response to specific HTML tagsinserted into the HTML code of a web page by the web server 4631 withinthe secure enterprise or Web destination 4630 (sometimes simply referredto below as “server 4630”). In response to detecting such a tag, thesecure transaction plugin 4605 may forward transactions to the securetransaction service 4601 for processing. In addition, for certain typesof transactions (e.g., such as secure key exchange) the securetransaction service 4601 may open a direct communication channel withthe on-premises transaction server 4632 (i.e., co-located with thewebsite) or with an off-premises transaction server 4633.

The secure transaction servers 4632-4633 are coupled to a securetransaction database 4640 for storing user data, authentication devicedata, keys and other secure information needed to support the secureauthentication transactions described below. It should be noted,however, that the underlying principles of the invention do not requirethe separation of logical components within the secure enterprise or webdestination 4630 shown in FIG. 46A. For example, the website 4631 andthe secure transaction servers 4632-4633 may be implemented within asingle physical server or separate physical servers. Moreover, thewebsite 4631 and transaction servers 4632-4633 may be implemented withinan integrated software module executed on one or more servers forperforming the functions described below.

As mentioned above, the underlying principles of the invention are notlimited to a browser-based architecture shown in FIG. 46A. FIG. 46Billustrates an alternate implementation in which a stand-aloneapplication 4654 utilizes the functionality provided by the securetransaction service 4601 to authenticate a user over a network. In oneembodiment, the application 4654 is designed to establish communicationsessions with one or more network services 4651 which rely on the securetransaction servers 4632-4633 for performing the user/clientauthentication techniques described in detail below.

In either of the embodiments shown in FIGS. 46A-B, the securetransaction servers 4632-4633 may generate the keys which are thensecurely transmitted to the secure transaction service 4601 and storedinto the authentication devices within the secure storage 4620.Additionally, the secure transaction servers 4632-4633 manage the securetransaction database 4640 on the server side.

An exemplary series of transactions for performing authentication devicediscovery, enrollment, registration, and authentication are shown inFIGS. 47-51. Some aspects of these transactions have been employed inthe OSTP protocol mentioned above (see the OSTP Framework (Mar. 23,2011) for additional details, which is incorporated herein byreference). An understanding of the basic operation of thesetransactions will provide a context in which embodiments of theinvention may be implemented.

The operations described below include detection of authenticationdevices (FIG. 47); enrollment of the user with the authenticationdevices (FIG. 48); registration of authentication devices (FIG. 49);user authentication with the registered authentication devices (FIG.50); and implementation of secure transactions following authentication(FIG. 51).

FIG. 47 illustrates a series of transactions for detectingauthentication devices on the client machine. After device detection issuccessfully completed, the server 4730 possesses exhaustive informationabout the authentication devices attached to the client and will be ableto assess which device(s) are most appropriate to use with the enhancedsecurity infrastructure. Only the server 4730 filters the list ofauthentication devices. The user will be provided with this list and maychoose one (or combination) of authentication devices to use for furtherauthentication and implementation of secure transactions.

In operation, the user authenticates with username and password inbrowser and logs in to web site. This is the only time that the userwill be required to provide a user name and password. The server 4730determines that the user is not currently using enhanced security (e.g.,by querying the secure transaction database 4720) and provides asuggestion to the user to change to enhanced security.

In one embodiment, the server 4730 includes a “query for devices” tag inan HTML page which the secure transaction plugin 4705 detects. Inresponse to detecting the tag, the secure transaction plugin 4705reroutes the request to the secure transaction service 4701 which thenprepares exhaustive information about all authentication devicesattached to the system including security characteristics of thedevices. In one embodiment, the information is packaged in an XML formatprior to transmission using a pre-specified data schema.

The secure transaction plugin 4705 receives this information from thesecure transaction service 4701 and, in one embodiment, passes theinformation to the web page's JavaScript via a registered callback. Itthen chooses how to display the information in the browser 4704. Thelist, filtered by the website, may be shown to the user and the user mayselect one or a combination of authentication devices.

FIG. 48 illustrates a series of transactions to enroll the user with theauthentication devices. In one embodiment, enrollment is a prerequisitefor using the enhanced security provided by the embodiments of theinvention described herein. Enrollment involves taking a biometricreading of the user (e.g., a fingerprint, voice sample, etc) so that thesame authentication device can be used to authenticate the user during asubsequent transaction. The enrollment operation may be done solely onthe client, without interaction with the server 4730. The userinterface(s) provided for enrollment may be displayed in the browserextension or may be displayed in a separate application or mobile deviceapp.

The enrollment operation may be initiated as soon as devices aredetected. The user may choose to use one or a group of discovereddevices for enhanced security. In operation, the user may select adevice from the displayed device list in the browser, application ormobile device app. For the browser-based implementation illustrated inFIG. 48, the secure transaction plugin 4705 displays a device-specificenrollment graphical user interface (GUI). The secure transaction plugin4705 transmits the device identifier and an enrollment request to securetransaction service 4701 and waits for completion. If the user isalready enrolled with an authentication device on the client, the usermay only need to verify their identity (i.e., they will not be requiredto enroll again). If the user is not currently enrolled, then the securetransaction service 101 starts the enrollment process by activating thephysical authentication device (e.g., via the device interface 4702).The user then interacts with the secure transaction plugin 4705 GUI andfollows the specified enrollment steps (e.g., swiping a finger, speakinginto a microphone, snapping a picture, etc). Once complete, the userwill be enrolled with the authentication device. Significantly, once auser is enrolled with a device, they may use this enrollment to registeror authenticate with any website or network service as described herein.

FIG. 49 illustrates a series of transactions for registration ofauthentication devices. During registration, a key is shared between theauthentication device and one of the secure transaction servers4732-4733. The key is stored within the secure storage 4720 of theclient 4700 and the secure transaction database 4720 used by the securetransaction servers 4732-4733. In one embodiment, the key is a symmetrickey generated by one of the secure transaction servers 4732-4733.However, in another embodiment discussed below, asymmetric keys may beused. In this embodiment, the public key may be stored by the securetransaction servers 4732-4733 and a second, related private key may bestored in the secure storage 4720 on the client. Moreover, in oneembodiment (also discussed below), the key(s) may be generated on theclient 4700 (e.g., by the authentication device or the authenticationdevice interface rather than the secure transaction servers 4732-4733).

A secure key provisioning protocol such as the Dynamic Symmetric KeyProvisioning Protocol (DSKPP) may be used to share the key with theclient over a secure communication channel (see, e.g., Request forComments (RFC) 6063). However, the underlying principles of theinvention are not limited to any particular key provisioning protocol.

Turning to the specific details shown in FIG. 49, once the userenrollment or user authentication is complete, the server 4730 generatesa randomly generated challenge (e.g., a cryptographic nonce) that mustbe presented by the client during device registration. The randomchallenge may be valid for a limited period of time. The securetransaction plugin detects the random challenge and forwards it to thesecure transaction service 4701. In response, the secure transactionservice initiates an out-of-band session with the server 4730 (e.g., anout-of-band transaction) and communicates with the server 4730 using thekey provisioning protocol. The server 4730 locates the user with theuser name, validates the random challenge, validates the device'sauthentication code if one was sent, and creates a new entry in thesecure transaction database 4720 for the user. It may also generate thekey, write the key to the database 4720 and send the key back to thesecure transaction service 4701 using the key provisioning protocol.Once complete, the authentication device and the server 4730 share thesame key if a symmetric key was used or different keys if asymmetrickeys were used.

FIG. 50 illustrates a series of transactions for user authenticationwith the registered authentication devices. Once device registration iscomplete the server 4730 will accept a token generated by the localauthentication device as a valid authentication token.

Turning to the specific details shown in FIG. 50, which shows abrowser-based implementation, the user enters the uniform resourcelocator (URL) of the server 4730 in the browser 4704. In animplementation which uses a stand alone application or mobile device app(rather than a browser), the user may enter a network address for anetwork service or the application or app may automatically attempt toconnect to the network service at the network address.

For a browser-based implementation, the website embeds a query forregistered devices in the HTML page. This may be done in many ways otherthan embedding the query in an HTML page, such as through Javascript orusing HTTP headers. The secure transaction plugin 4705 receives the URLand sends it to secure transaction service 4701, which searches thelooks into the secure storage 4720 (which, as discussed, includes adatabase of authentication device and user information) and determineswhether there is a user enrolled within this URL. If so, the securetransaction service 4701 sends a list of provisioned devices associatedwith this URL to the secure transaction plugin 4705. The securetransaction plugin then calls the registered JavaScript API and passesthis information to the server 4730 (e.g., the website). The server 4730chooses the appropriate device from the sent device list, generates arandom challenge and sends the device information, and argument back tothe client. The website displays the corresponding user interface andasks for authentication from the user. The user then provides therequested authentication measure (e.g., swiping a finger across thefingerprint reader, speaking for voice recognition, etc). The securetransaction service 4701 identifies the user (this step can be skippedfor devices which don't support storing users), obtains the usernamefrom the database, generates an authentication token using the key andsends this information to the website via the secure transaction plugin.The server 4730 identifies the user from the secure transaction database4720 and verifies the token by generating the same token on the server4730 (e.g., using its copy of the key). Once verified, theauthentication process is complete.

FIG. 51 illustrates a secure transaction following authentication for abrowser-based implementation. The secure transaction is designed toprovide stronger security for certain types of transactions (e.g.,financial transactions). In the illustrated embodiment, the userconfirms each transaction prior to committing the transaction. Using theillustrated techniques, the user confirms exactly what he/she wants tocommit and commits exactly what he/she sees displayed in the GUI. Inother words, this embodiment ensures that the transaction text cannot bemodified by a “man in the middle” to commit a transaction which the userdid not confirm.

In one embodiment, the secure transaction plugin 4705 displays a window5101 in the browser context to show the transaction details. The securetransaction server 4701 periodically (e.g., with a random interval)verifies that the text that is shown in the window is not being tamperedby anyone.

The following example will help to highlight the operation of thisembodiment. A user chooses items for purchase from a merchant site andselects “check out.” The merchant site sends the transaction to aservice provide which has a secure transaction server 4732-4733implementing one or more of the embodiments of the invention describedherein (e.g., PayPal). The merchant site authenticates the user andcompletes the transaction.

The secure transaction server 4732-4733 receives the transaction details(TD) and puts a “Secure Transaction” request in an HTML page and sendsto client 4700. The Secure Transaction request includes the transactiondetails and a random challenge (e.g., a random nonce). The securetransaction plugin 4705 detects the request for transaction confirmationmessage and forwards all data to the secure transaction service 4701. Inan embodiment which does not use a browser or plugin, the informationmay be sent directly from the secure transaction servers to the securetransaction service on the client 4700.

For a browser-based implementation, the secure transaction plugin 4705displays a window 5101 with transaction details to the user (in abrowser context) and asks the user to provide authentication to confirmthe transaction. In an embodiment which does not use a browser orplugin, the secure transaction service 4701 or application 4754 maydisplay the window 5101. The secure transaction service 4701 starts atimer and verifies the content of the window 5101 being displayed to theuser. The period of verification may be randomly chosen. The securetransaction service 4701 ensures that user sees the valid transactiondetails in the window 5101. If it detects that the content has beentampered with it prevents the confirmation token from being generated.

After the user provides valid authentication (e.g., swipes a finger onthe fingerprint sensor), the device identifies the user and generates atoken (cryptographic signature) with the transaction details and therandom challenge (i.e., the token is calculated over the transactiondetails and the nonce). This allows the secure transaction server4732-4733 to ensure that the transaction details have not been modifiedbetween the server and the client. The secure transaction service 4701sends the generated token and username to the secure transaction plugin4705 which forwards the token to the secure transaction server4732-4733. The secure transaction server 4732-4733 identifies the userwith the username and verifies the token. If verification succeeds, aconfirmation message is sent to the client and the transaction isprocessed.

System and Method for a Secure Query Policy to Determine ClientAuthentication Capabilities

As mentioned, one embodiment of the invention implements a query policyin which a secure transaction server transmits a server policy to theclient indicating the authentication capabilities accepted by theserver. The client then analyzes the server policy to identify a subsetof authentication capabilities which it supports and/or which the userhas indicated a desire to use. The client then registers and/orauthenticates the user using the subset of authentication tokensmatching the provided policy. Consequently, there is a lower impact tothe client's privacy because the client is not required to transmitexhaustive information about its authentication capabilities (e.g., allof its authentication devices) or other information which might be usedto uniquely identify the client.

By way of example, and not limitation, the client may include numerousauthentication capabilities such as a fingerprint sensor, voicerecognition capabilities, facial recognition capabilities, eye/opticalrecognition capabilities, a trusted platform module (TPM), andsmartcard, to name a few. However, for privacy reasons, the user may notwish to divulge the details for all of its capabilities to a requestingserver. Thus, using the techniques described herein, the securetransaction server may transmit a server policy to the client indicatingthat it supports, for example, fingerprint, optical, or smartcardauthentication. The client may then compare the server policy againstits own authentication capabilities and choose one or more of theavailable authentication options.

FIG. 52 illustrates one embodiment of a client-server architecture forimplementing these techniques. As illustrated, the secure transactionservice 4701 implemented on the client 4700 includes a policy filter5201 for analyzing the policy provided by the server 4730 andidentifying a subset of authentication capabilities to be used forregistration and/or authentication. In one embodiment, the policy filter5201 is implemented as a software module executed within the context ofthe secure transaction service 4701. It should be noted, however, thatthe policy filter 5201 may be implemented in any manner while stillcomplying with the underlying principles of the invention and mayinclude software, hardware, firmware, or any combination thereof.

The particular implementation shown in FIG. 52 includes a securetransaction plugin 4705 for establishing communication with the secureenterprise or Web destination 4730 (sometimes referred to simply as“server 4730”) using techniques previously discussed. For example, thesecure transaction plugin may identify a specific HTML tag inserted intothe HTML code by a web server 4731. Thus, in this embodiment, the serverpolicy is provided to the secure transaction plugin 4705 which forwardsit to the secure transaction service 4701 implementing the policy filter5201.

The policy filter 5201 may determine the client authenticationcapabilities by reading the capabilities from the client's securestorage area 5220. As previously discussed, the secure storage 5220 maycomprise a repository of all of the client's authentication capabilities(e.g., identification codes for all of the authentication devices). Ifthe user has already enrolled the user with its authentication devices,the user's enrollment data is stored within the secure storage 5220. Ifthe client has already registered an authentication device with a server4730, then the secure storage may also store an encrypted secret keyassociated with each authentication device.

Using the authentication data extracted from the secure storage 5220 andthe policy provided by the server, the policy filter 5201 may thenidentify a subset of authentication capabilities to be used. Dependingon the configuration, the policy filter 5201 may identify a completelist of authentication capabilities supported by both the client and theserver or may identify a subset of the complete list. For example, ifthe server supports authentication capabilities A, B, C, D, and E andthe client has authentication capabilities A, B, C, F, and G, then thepolicy filter 5201 may identify the entire subset of commonauthentication capabilities to the server: A, B, and C. Alternatively,if a higher level of privacy is desired, as indicated by userpreferences 5230 in FIG. 52, then a more limited subset ofauthentication capabilities may be identified to the server. Forexample, the user may indicate that only a single common authenticationcapability should be identified to the server (e.g., one of A, B or C).In one embodiment, the user may establish a prioritization scheme forall of the authentication capabilities of the client 4700 and the policyfilter may select the highest priority authentication capability (or aprioritized set of N authentication capabilities) common to both theserver and the client.

Depending on what operation has been initiated by server 4730(Registration or Authentication), the secure transaction service 4730performs that operation on the filtered subset of authentication devices(4710-4712) and sends the operation response back to server 4730 via thesecure transaction plugin 4705 as shown in FIG. 52. Alternatively, in anembodiment which does not rely on a plugin 4705 component of a Webbrowser, the information may be passed directly from the securetransaction service 4701 to the server 4730.

FIG. 53 illustrates a transaction diagram showing additional details foran exemplary series of registration with query policy transaction. Inthe illustrated embodiment, the user has not previously registereddevices with the server 4730. Consequently, at 5301 the user may enter auser name and password as an initial, one-time authentication step,which is forwarded at 5302 to the server 4730 via the client browser4704. It should be noted, however, that a user name and password are notrequired for complying with the underlying principles of the invention.

Because the user has not previously registered with enhanced security,determined at 5303, the server 4730 transmits its server policy to theclient at 5304. As mentioned, the server policy may include anindication of the authentication capabilities supported by the server4730. In the illustrated example, the server policy is passed to thesecure transaction service 4701 via transaction 5306.

At transaction 5307, the secure transaction service 4701 compares theserver policy with the capabilities of the client (and potentially otherinformation such as device priority scheme and/or user preferences asdescribed above) to arrive at a filtered list of authenticationcapabilities. The filtered list of devices (4702) then generate keys(5308 and 5309) and then provide public parts of these keys to securetransaction service 4701 which in its turn sends these as registrationresponse back to server 4730. The server attests the authenticationdevices and stores public keys in secure transaction database. The TokenAttestation employed here is the process of validating authenticationdevice identity during registration. It allows server tocryptographically make sure that the device reported by Client is reallywho it claimed to be.

Alternatively, or in addition, at 5307, the user may be provided with anopportunity to review the list and/or select specific authenticationcapabilities to be used with this particular server 4730. For example,the filtered list may indicate the option to use authentication with afingerprint scan, facial recognition, and/or voice recognition. The usermay then choose to use one or more of these options when authenticatingwith the server 4730.

The techniques described above for filtering a server policy at a clientmay be implemented at various different stages of the series oftransactions described above (e.g., during device discovery, deviceregistration, device provisioning, user authentication, etc). That is,the underlying principles of the invention are not limited to thespecific set of transactions and the specific transaction ordering setforth in FIG. 53.

Moreover, as previously mentioned, a browser plugin architecture is notrequired for complying with the underlying principles of the invention.For an architecture which does involve a browser or browser plug-ins(e.g., such as a stand-alone application or mobile device app), thetransaction diagram shown in FIG. 53 (and the rest of the transactiondiagrams disclosed herein) may be simplified such that the browser 4704is removed, and the secure transaction service 4701 communicatesdirectly with the server 4730.

System and Method for Efficiently Enrolling, Registering, andAuthenticating With Multiple Authentication Devices

One embodiment of the invention is capable of enrolling, registering,and authenticating multiple devices at the same time, thereby improvingefficiency and the user experience. For example, instead of requestingregistration and authentication for a single device at a time, a list ofdevices may be sent to the client. Symmetric or asymmetric keys may thenbe registered into multiple devices in one operation, or series ofsequential operations executed locally on the client. Forauthentication, several tokens/devices may be selected concurrently fora given transaction.

FIG. 54 illustrates one embodiment of a client-server architecture forimplementing these techniques. As illustrated, the secure transactionservice 4701 implemented on the client 4700 includes multi-deviceprocessing logic 5401 for performing specified operations such asenrollment and registration of multiple devices at a time without theneed for continual back-and-forth communication with the server 4730 aseach device is enrolled/registered. Similarly, the server 4730 includesmulti-device processing logic for issuing commands directed to multipleauthentication devices. In one embodiment, the multi-device processinglogic 5401 is implemented as a software module executed within thecontext of the secure transaction service 4701. It should be noted,however, that the multi-device processing logic 5401 may be implementedin any manner while still complying with the underlying principles ofthe invention and may include software, hardware, or firmwarecomponents, or any combination thereof.

As in the embodiments described above, the particular implementationshown in FIG. 54 includes secure transaction plugin 4705 forestablishing communication with the server 4730 (which, as discussed,may include a Website server 4731 and secure transaction servers4732-4733). Thus, the server 4730 communicates with the securetransaction service 4701 via the secure transaction plugin 4705. Asmentioned, however, a browser-based plugin architecture is not requiredfor complying with the underlying principles of the invention.

The multi-device processing logic 5402 on the server 4730 maycommunicate commands to be executed by the multi-device processing logic5401 on the client 4700 which performs the operations on multipleauthentication devices 4710-4712. By way of example, the multi-deviceprocessing logic 5402 may generate N keys to be registered with each ofN authentication devices and then transmit securely to the multi-deviceprocessing logic 5401 along with a command to register the N devices.The multi-device processing logic 5401 may then perform the registrationconcurrently or in a series of sequential operations for all N devices(e.g., for authentication devices 4710-4712) without further interactionwith the server. A single response may then be sent to the server 4730to indicate the completed registration of all N devices.

A series of exemplary multiple-device transactions are illustrated inFIGS. 55A-C. FIG. 55A illustrates a multiple-device enrollment processwhich may be performed without any interaction with the server 4730(e.g., enrolling the user with authentication devices may be performedunder the control of the secure transaction service 4701 on the client).In an alternate embodiment, the server 4730 may transmit a request tothe client (now shown) to enroll the user with the N devices. FIGS.55B-C illustrate two different embodiments for registering multipledevices with the server 4730.

Turning to the enrollment process in FIG. 55A, at 5501, the userindicates a desire to enroll with N authentication devices on the client(representing all or a subset of the available authentication devices).In response, the secure transaction plugin is called at 5502 and, at5503, a device-specific graphical user interface (GUI) is generated towalk the user through the process or enrolling with authenticationdevice #1. During the enrollment process, the user interacts with thesecure transaction plugin as indicated (e.g., by positioning a fingerover a fingerprint sensor, speaking into a microphone, snapping apicture with the camera, etc). In one embodiment, enrollment isperformed for each of the N devices until enrollment is completed forthe Nth device at 5504. A different, device-specific script and/or userinterface may be presented to the user to enroll the user with eachindividual authentication device. As previously discussed, as the userenrolls with each device, the user enrollment data may be stored withinthe secure storage 720 on the client 4700 and made accessible onlythrough the secure transaction service 4701. Once enrollment for all Ndevices is complete, a notification may be sent to the server 4730 viatransactions 5504-5505.

Regardless of how enrollment is performed, once completed, thetransaction diagram shown in FIG. 55B may be used to register the Ndevices with the server 4730. At 5510 the server 4730 generates auser-specific random challenge which, as previously described, may onlybe valid for a limited window of time and may comprise arandomly-generated code such as a cryptographic nonce. At 5511, therandom challenge is transmitted along with a command to register Nauthentication devices with the server 4730. At 5512, the securetransaction service 4701 creates a secure connection with the server4730 and transmits identification data for the N devices, along with therandom challenge. In one embodiment, the secure connection is an HTTPSconnection. However, the underlying principles of the invention are notlimited to any particular secure connection type.

At 5513, the server 4730 attests the N devices, generates a key for eachof the N devices, and sends the N keys back to the secure transactionservice over the secure connection. In one embodiment, the DynamicSymmetric Key Provisioning Protocol (DSKPP) is used to exchange keyswith the client over the secure connection. However, the underlyingprinciples of the invention are not limited to any particular keyprovisioning techniques. Alternatively, in an embodiment which does notrely on DSKPP protocol, the keys may be generated in each AuthenticationDevice and then transmitted to server 4730.

At 5514-5515, the multi-device processing logic of the securetransaction service registers each of the N keys into each of the Ndevices. As previously described, each key may be stored and associatedwith its respective device within the secure storage 720 on the client.Once registration is complete for each authentication device, anotification is sent to the server over the secure connection at 5516.

In one embodiment, the keys registered into each authentication deviceare symmetric keys. Thus, an identical copy of each key is stored in thesecure storage 720 on the client and the secure transaction database4720 on the server 4730. In an alternate implementation, asymmetric keypairs may be generated, with one of the keys being maintained as apublic key in the secure transaction database 4720 on the server and theprivate key being stored in the secure storage 720 of the client. Itshould be noted, however, that the underlying principles of theinvention are not limited to any particular type of encryption keys.

An alternate implementation is illustrated in FIG. 55C in which keys aregenerated on the client rather than the server 4730. In thisimplementation, after receiving the request to register devices with therandom challenge at 5511, the multi-device processing logic of thesecure transaction service 4701 generates N keys for each of the Ndevices at 1120. Once generated, the keys are registered with each ofthe N devices at 5513-5514 and the registration stored within the securestorage 720 as previously described. Once all keys have been registered,the secure transaction service 4701 provides a notification to theserver at 5515 along with the random challenge (to verify the identityof the client). The server 4730 may then store the registration in thesecure transaction database 4720 as described above.

System and Method for Processing Random Challenges Within anAuthentication Framework

One embodiment of the invention improves the manner in which randomchallenges are generated by the server and processed. In one embodiment,the random challenge comprises a randomly generated code such as acryptographic nonce. In current systems, after a server transmits arandom challenge to the client, if the client does not respond within aspecified timeout period, the random challenge is no longer valid andthe client will receive an error in response to a subsequentauthentication attempt (e.g., the user will swipe a finger on thefingerprint reader and be denied).

In one embodiment of the invention, the client automatically detectsthat the challenge has expired and transparently requests a newchallenge from the server (i.e., without user intervention). The serverthen generates a new random challenge and transmits it to the clientwhich may then use it to establish secure communication with the server.The end user experience is improved because the user does not receive anerror or denial of an authentication request.

FIG. 56A illustrates one such embodiment which is used within thecontext of a registration process and FIG. 56B illustrates an embodimentwhich is used within the context of an authentication process. It shouldbe noted, however, that the underlying principles of the invention maybe employed in other contexts than those shown in FIGS. 56A-B. Forexample, the techniques described herein may be used with any process inwhich a time-sensitive code is communicated from a server to a client.

Turning first to FIG. 56A, at 5601, the server 4730 generates a randomchallenge and an indication of a timeout period. In one embodiment, thetimeout period comprises a period of time for which the random challengeis considered valid. After the timeout period has elapsed, the randomchallenge is no longer considered valid by the server 4730. In oneembodiment, the timeout period is specified simply as a point in time atwhich the random challenge will no longer be valid. Once this point intime is reached, the random challenge is invalid. In another embodiment,the timeout period is specified by using a current timestamp (i.e., thetime at which the random challenge is generated by the server 4730) anda duration. The secure transaction service 4701 may then calculate thetimeout time by adding the duration value to the timestamp to calculatethe point in time when the random challenge becomes invalid. It shouldbe noted, however, that the underlying principles of the invention arenot limited to any specific technique for calculating the timeoutperiod.

Regardless of how the timeout period is specified or calculated, at 5602the random challenge and the timeout indication are transmitted to thesecure transaction service 4701 (via the browser 4704 and securetransaction plugin 4705 in the illustrated example). At 5603, the securetransaction service 4701 detects that the random challenge has timed outand is no longer valid based on the timeout indication sent from theserver 4730. By way of example, the user may have turned off his/herclient machine or closed the lid on his/her notebook computer prior tocompleting the series of transactions. If the transaction is one whichrequires user interaction, the user may have simply walked away orignored a message displayed within the GUI.

At 5604, upon detecting that the random challenge is no longer valid,the secure transaction service 4701 transmits a request for a new randomchallenge to the server 4730 (via the secure transaction plugin 4705 andbrowser 4704 in the illustrated example). At 5605, the server 4730generates a new random challenge an a new indication of the timeoutperiod. In one embodiment, the timeout period is the same as inoperation 5601 or may be modified. For example, the server 4730 mayincrease the duration of the timeout period to reduce data traffic withthe client or decrease the duration to increase the level of securityprovided by the random challenge. At 5606, the new random challenge andtimeout indication is transmitted to the secure transaction service4701.

The remainder of the transactions occurs as previously described. Forexample, the secure transaction service opens a secure connectiondirectly to the server at 5607 in order to perform device registrationand key exchange as discussed above with respect to FIG. 49, FIG. 55B,or FIG. 55C. At 5608, the server 4730 identifies the user (e.g., with auser name or other ID), attests authentication device, and generates akey for the device. As mentioned, the key may be a symmetric key or anasymmetric key. At 5609, the keys are transmitted to the securetransaction service 4701 via the secure connection and, at 5610, thesecure transaction service 4701 registers the key into theauthentication device. At 5611, a notification that registration iscomplete is transmitted to the server 4730.

Thus, in the embodiment shown in FIG. 56A, the key used for deviceregistration is generated at the server 4730 as in the embodiment shownin FIG. 55B. However, the underlying principles of the invention mayalso be used in an embodiment in which the key(s) are generated by thesecure transaction service 4701 on the client 4700, such as thatdescribed above with respect to FIG. 55C.

FIG. 56B illustrates one embodiment of the invention implemented withinthe context of an authentication process. At 5651, the user enters aparticular website URL into the browser 4704 and is directed to the webserver 4731 within the enterprise/web destination servers 4730 whichincludes the secure transaction servers 4732-4733. At 5652, a query issent back to the secure transaction service (via the browser and plugin)to determine which device(s) are registered with the website's URL. Thesecure transaction service 4701 queries the secure storage 720 on theclient 4700 to identify a list of devices which are sent back to theserver 4730 at 5653. At 5654, the server 5654 chooses a device to usefor authentication, generates a random challenge and a timeoutindication and, at 5655, sends this information back to the securetransaction service 4701.

At 5656, the secure transaction service 5656 automatically detects thatthe random challenge is no longer valid upon reaching the end of thetimeout period. As mentioned above, various different techniques may beemployed for indicating and detecting the end of the timeout period (seeFIG. 56A and associated text). Upon detecting the expiration of therandom challenge, at 5657, the secure transaction service 4701transparently (i.e., without user intervention) notifies the server 4730and requests a new random challenge. In response, at 5658, the server4730 generates a new random challenge and a new indication of thetimeout period. As mentioned, the new timeout period may be the same aspreviously sent to the client or may be modified. In either case, at5659, the new random challenge and timeout indication are sent to thesecure transaction service 4701.

The remainder of the transaction diagram shown in FIG. 56B operates insubstantially the same manner as described above (see, e.g., FIG. 50).For example, at 5660, an authentication user interface is displayed(e.g., directing the user to swipe a finger on a fingerprint sensor)and, at 5661, the user provides authentication (e.g., swipes a finger onthe fingerprint scanner). At 5662, the secure transaction serviceverifies the identity of the user (e.g., comparing the authenticationdata collected from the user with that stored in the secure storage 720)and uses the key associated with the authentication device to encryptthe random challenge. At 5663, the user name (or other ID code) and theencrypted random challenge are sent to the server 4730. Finally, at5664, the server 4730 identifies the user within the secure transactiondatabase 4720 using the user name (or other ID code), anddecrypts/verifies the random challenge using the key stored in thesecure transaction database 4720 to complete the authentication process.

System and Method for Implementing Privacy Classes within anAuthentication Framework

In one embodiment, multiple classes of privacy protection may bepredefined, selected and/or modified by the end user. The privacyclasses may be defined based on the probability with which a client canbe identified using the divulged information. At privacy classes havingrelatively higher privacy levels, relatively less information about theclient device is divulged to perform the authentication techniquesdescribed herein. In one embodiment, the user may choose to disclose theleast amount of information possible when communicating with differentservers (i.e., may choose transactions having the lowest allowableprivacy impact for each website or network service).

FIG. 57 illustrates a high level architecture for implementing privacyclasses. As illustrated, the secure transaction service 4701 of thisembodiment includes privacy management logic 5701 for analyzing queriesreceived from the server 4730 for client information such as informationrelated to authentication devices, implementing a privacy policy inresponse to such queries, and generating a response containing clientinformation collected based on the particular privacy class in use. Inone embodiment, the privacy management module 5701 is implemented as asoftware module executed within the context of the secure transactionservice 4701. It should be noted, however, that the privacy managementmodule 5701 may be implemented in any manner while still complying withthe underlying principles of the invention and may include software,hardware, firmware, or any combination thereof.

The privacy classes utilized by the privacy management logic 5701 may bepre-specified and stored on the client 4700 (e.g., within stored withinsecure storage 5720). In one embodiment, three privacy classes aredefined: high privacy impact, medium privacy impact, and low privacyimpact. Each privacy class may be defined based on a probability withwhich the divulged information could be used to uniquely identify auser/client. For example, the information divulged for a low privacyimpact transaction may result in a 10% probability of the user ormachine being uniquely identified over internet; a medium privacy impacttransaction may result in a 50% probability of the user or machine beinguniquely identified; and a high privacy impact transaction may result ina 100% probability of the user or machine being uniquely identified.Various other privacy class levels may be defined while still complyingwith the underlying principles of the invention.

In one embodiment, each relying party (e.g., each website 4731 orservice 4751) may specify a required privacy class or other privacythreshold. For example, websites and services requiring a heightenedlevel of security may only allow communication in accordance with thehigh privacy impact class whereas other websites/services may permitinteractions using the medium privacy impact or low privacy impactclass. In one embodiment, the query for client information sent from theserver 4730 includes an attribute specifying which privacy classes ofinformation should be retrieved (i.e. low, medium, high). Thus, theprivacy management logic 5701 will store information for the highestapproved privacy class for each relying party. In one embodiment,whenever the relying party asks for information belonging to a higherprivacy class than the one already approved, the user will be promptedto permanently approve (or reject) this new privacy class for thisrelying party. In response to the user's approval, the privacymanagement logic may store the new association between the relying party(e.g., identified via a URL) and the new privacy class.

While the user preferences 5730 are applied directly to the privacymanagement logic in FIG. 57 for simplicity, it should be noted that theuser may specify preferences via a browser-based graphical userinterface (not shown). In such a case, the user would enter privacysetting via a browser window. The secure transaction plugin 4705 wouldthen store the new settings to the privacy management logic 5701, or toa configuration data file accessible by the privacy management logic5701. In short, the underlying principles of the invention are notlimited to any particular mechanism for configuring the privacymanagement logic.

Various types of client data may be specified at the various privacyclass levels including, for example, a machine model identifier, clientsoftware information, client capabilities, and various levels ofinformation related to each authentication device configured on theclient device (e.g., device ID codes, vendor ID codes, device class ID,etc). Different combinations of this information may be gathered todetermine the percentages specified above defining the different privacyclasses.

FIG. 58 illustrates a series of transactions for providing informationto a requesting party using defined privacy classes. At 5801 the server4730 generates a notification containing a query for client deviceinformation. At 5802, the query is sent to the client and ultimatelyreceived by the secure transaction service 4701. At 5803, the privacymanagement logic of the secure transaction service determines a privacyclass for the response and collects the necessary information. Asmentioned above, N different privacy class levels may be defined and thesecure transaction service 4701 may choose the one which complies withthe requirements of the requesting party while at the same time divulgesas little information as possible regarding the client. At 5804, thecollected information is sent to the server 4730 and at 5805, the serveruses the information for one or more subsequent transactions with theclient.

System and Method for Implementing an Authentication Framework UsingTransaction Signing

One embodiment of the invention employs transaction signing on thesecure transaction server so that no transaction state needs to bemaintained on the server to maintain sessions with clients. Inparticular, transaction details such as transaction text may be sent tothe client signed by server. The server may then verify that the signedtransaction responses received by the client are valid by verifying thesignature. The server does not need to persistently store thetransaction content, which would consume a significant amount of storagespace for a large number of clients and would open possibility fordenial of service type attacks on server.

One embodiment of the invention is illustrated in FIG. 59 which shows awebsite or other network service (5901) initiating a transaction with aclient 4700. For example, the user may have selected items for purchaseon the website and may be ready to check out and pay. In the illustratedexample, the website or service 5901 hands off the transaction to asecure transaction server 5902 which includes signature processing logic5903 for generating and verifying signatures (as described herein) andauthentication logic for performing client authentication 5904 (e.g.,using the authentication techniques previously described).

In one embodiment, the authentication request sent from the securetransaction server 5902 to the client 4700 includes the random challengesuch as a cryptographic nonce (as described above), the transactiondetails (e.g., the specific text presented to complete the transaction),and a signature generated by the signature processing logic 5903 overthe random challenge and the transaction details using a private key(known only by the secure transaction server).

Once the above information is received by the client, the user mayreceive an indication that authentication is required to complete thetransaction. In response, the user may, for example, swipe a fingeracross a fingerprint scanner, snap a picture, speak into a microphone,or perform any other type of authentication permitted for the giventransaction. In one embodiment, once the user has successfullyauthenticated on the client 4700, the client transmits the followingback to the server: (1) the random challenge and transaction text (bothpreviously provided to the client by the server), (2) authenticationdata proving that the user successfully completed authentication, and(3) the signature.

The authentication module 5904 on the secure transaction server 5902 maythen confirm that the user has correctly authenticated and the signatureprocessing logic 5903 re-generates the signature over the randomchallenge and the transaction text using the private key. If thesignature matches the one sent by the client, then the server can verifythat the transaction text is the same as it was when initially receivedfrom the website or service 5901. Storage and processing resources areconserved because the secure transaction server 5902 is not required topersistently store the transaction text (or other transaction data)within the secure transaction database 4720.

Canonical Authentication System

Even after many years of IT innovations, passwords are still the mostwidely used authentication method. However, neither users nor serviceproviders handle passwords appropriately, making this form ofauthentication inherently insecure. On the other hand, more than 1billion Trusted Platform Modules (TPMs) and more than 150 million secureelements have been shipped; microphones and cameras are integrated inmost smart phones and fingerprint sensors and Trusted ExecutionEnvironments (TEEs) are on the rise. There are better ways forauthentication than passwords or One-Time-Passwords (OTPs).

In 2007, the average user had 25 accounts, used 6.5 passwords andperformed logins 8 times a day. Today, things are much worse. Ananalysis of 6 million accounts showed that 10,000 common passwords wouldhave access to 30% of the accounts (Burnett, 2011). Even when looking atpasswords for banking accounts, it can be found that 73% of users sharedtheir online banking password with at least one non-financial site(Trusteer, Inc., 2010), which means that when the non-banking site getshacked, the banking account is threatened.

Several proposals to replace passwords have been made, including silosof authentication, heterogeneous authentication, and trustworthy clientenvironments.

silos of authentication: current alternative technologies require theirrespective proprietary server technology. The current authenticationarchitecture therefore consists of silos comprising the authenticationmethod, the related client implementation and the related servertechnology.

Innovative authentication methods proposed by the research community arenot widely deployed, as in addition to the client implementation thecomplete server software needs to be implemented and deployed. Insteadof having a competition for better user verification methods,authentication companies are faced with a battle for the best servertechnology.

Heterogeneous Authentication:

Users may authenticate using standalone PCs, tablets or smart phones.The employer may control some devices while others may be controlled bythe user (David A. Willis, Gartner, 2013). Increased adoption of mobiledevices and the BYOD trend lead to an increasingly heterogeneousauthentication landscape. The one authentication method satisfying allneeds seems to be out of reach.

Trustworthy Client Environment:

Client side malware may capture and disclose passwords or OTPs. It mayalter transactions to be confirmed after being displayed or it canmisuse authenticated communication channels to perform unintendedactions. Authentication—even with user name and password—needs at leastone trustworthy component at the client side.

Today the alternatives to password or OTP-based authentication do notscale. This is primarily due to sub-optimal combinations ofauthentication building blocks. To address this limitation, oneembodiment of the invention identifies canonical building blocks whichcan be implemented in various different ways and still lead to awell-known and functional authentication system—suitable for integrationwithin existing platform functionality.

The recent large-scale attacks on passwords were all focused on theserver side. Such attacks are independent from the effort and from thesecurity measures users take. In the attack classification illustratedin FIG. 60, these attacks are labelled with (1). Introducing protectionmeasures against this single threat class will very likely shift theattacker focus to attacks to steal and misuse authentication credentialsfrom user devices (2-4), including stealing and misusing data byimpersonating a user (2-3) and misusing authenticated sessions (4).Items (5) and (6) include physical theft of the user's device andstealing data (5) and/or misusing the device for impersonating the user.However, it is very likely that attacks will focus on some kind ofscalable attack, i.e. an attack with some fixed cost but the potentialof a large number of sellable items. Physically attacking individualdevices is possible, but less scalable.

In one embodiment of the invention, instead of storing hashed passwordshaving relatively low entropy, asymmetric public keys may be stored onthe server and the related private key may be stored in the device.Computing the private key from a given public key is very resourceconsuming as it requires factoring (RSA) or solving the discretelogarithm problem (DSA/ECDSA). The private key at least should beprotected against malware attacks. In one embodiment, this isaccomplished using Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) or SecureElements (SEs) on the client device.

Given that most client devices are always online, instead of extractingthe private key, malware may simply attempt to misuse it. In order toprotect against such attacks, (a) the access to use the key should belimited to eligible apps and (b) some kind of user interaction whichcannot be emulated by malware is required. TrustedUI (GlobalPlatform,2013) can be used to implement such kind of user interaction. Note thatSecure Elements typically do not have a user interface and hence do notprovide this kind of protection.

When implementing the protection measures as described above, theauthentication is secure. However, attackers may then focus on attackingthe App which controls the authenticated session. Existing PC infectionrates (APWG, 2014) demonstrate the feasibility of these types ofattacks. When having an Authenticator with higher protection thancurrent Mobile Apps, this Authenticator can be used for displaying andretrieving a user's confirmation for a particular transaction. In such acase, infected Apps could lead to (a) malicious transactions beingdisplayed which would be rejected by the user or (b) signed transactionswhich would be modified after signing, which would be detected by theserver. This is the second use-case for the TrustedUI implementation.

In one embodiment, Secure Elements are used to protect against physicalkey extraction. The underlying chip hardware for SE typically implementsstate-of-the-art protection measures against physical attacks. (Dr.Sergei Skorobogatov, University of Cambridge, 2011). In addition, in oneembodiment, TrustedUI or other dedicated user verification hardware suchas Fingerprint sensors may be used to meet the need for physical userinteraction.

If an attacker gains physical access to a device, the attacker could tryto misuse the key instead of extracting it. In order to protect againstsuch attacks, an effective user verification method is used which has alow false acceptance rate, good anti-spoofing methods and anti-hammeringmechanisms (i.e., to effectively limit the number of potentialbrute-force attempts).

Given that scalable attacks are predominant, one embodiment focuses oncounter-measures for physical attacks after implementing thecounter-measures for the scalable attacks.

Having good protection for attestation on the client side is beneficial,but in reality the remote party (i.e., the server side) is alsointerested in understanding the security being used. Consequently, oneembodiment of the invention “attests” the client-side securityproperties to the remote server. In order to be effective, theseattestation techniques need to be at least as strong as the client sideprotection.

For practical solutions, the privacy of attestation is also important.Methods like direct anonymous attestation (DAA) are a good choice.Unfortunately, the original DAA method was too slow when implemented onstandard hardware. The improved pairing-based DAA scheme is much faster.It has been adopted by TCG for TPMv2 (Liqun Chen, HP Laboratories andJiangtao Li, Intel Corporation, 2013).

A typical signature consist of a to-be-signed object controlled by theApp and a signature computed using the private key. So to the verifier,any data in the to-be-signed object is only as trustworthy as the Appcontrolling the contents of the to-be-signed object.

As illustrated in FIG. 61, in one embodiment, the private key 6105 isprotected by an attested authenticator 6102, which is more trustworthythan the App 6101. The authenticator may include a transactionconfirmation component 6109 (e.g., to allow the user to confirm the textof a confirmation as described herein) and a user verification component6106 (e.g., to allow for biometric or other type of userauthentication). In one embodiment, an attestation module 6103 uses theprivate key 6105 to generate a signature 6108 over an object whichincludes authenticator attributes and application data to generate asigned object 6107. As illustrated, in one embodiment, the object to besigned comprises a concatenation of attested attributes of theauthenticator and application data. The attested attributes used in thesigned object may include, for example, (a) the Transaction Text asconfirmed by the user, (b) the actual personal identification number(PIN) length as opposed to the minimal PIN length, or (c) the firmwareversion of the authenticator implementation.

The illustrated implementation is more secure than existing systemsbecause exclusive control of the key 6105 is granted to theAuthenticator 6102 (instead of being granted to the app 6101). In oneembodiment, the to-be-signed object, exclusively controlled by theAuthenticator 6102 has a “slot” reserved for data controlled by the App6101 (identified as “App Data” in FIG. 61). As a result, in thisembodiment, the App 6101 is not permitted to arbitrarily create any formof to-be-signed objects. Each signed object will look similar, so theobject verification module 6111 of the relying party 6110 can trust thatthe attested attributes were contributed by the trusted Authenticator6102. In one embodiment, the object verification module 6111 uses thepublic key and metadata 6112 associated with the authenticator 6102(e.g., the authenticator type, model and/or version) to verify thesignature 6108.

In one embodiment, a set of canonical building blocks are defined thatcan be used to assemble an authentication system such as shown in FIG.61. Once particular set of building blocks include:

1. Hardware and/or software to generate cryptographic keys and attest tosuch keys to a remote party.

2. Hardware and/or software to generate attested signatures.

3. Hardware and/or software to verify a user.

4. Hardware and/or software bind keys to an entity (e.g., restrict “use”access of such keys to a defined set of software applications).

Not all building blocks need to be present. Authentication systems canbe built even using only building block #1. The other building blockscan be added as needed. The overall security and usabilitycharacteristic depends on the specific implementations of the buildingblocks used.

FIG. 62 illustrates one particular embodiment which includes aclient-side authenticator 6201, a client side platform 6202 (e.g., amobile device using Android OS or Windows OS), a remote party 6203, andmetadata 6304. One embodiment of the authenticator 6201 generates theauthentication keys and supports attestation of the authentication keysto a remote party 6203. Various attestation methods are supportedincluding those described above. See also FIDO Basic Attestation (RolfLindemann, Davit Baghdsaryan and Eric Tiffany, 2014), DAA (ErnieBrickell, Intel Corporation; Jan Camenisch, IBM Research; Liqun Chen, HPLaboratories, 2004), ECDAA (Ernie Brickell, Intel Corporation; JiangtaoLi, Intel Labs).

The remote party has access to metadata 6204 which it uses to verify theattestation object. The authenticator may be implemented as a physicallyseparate entity (e.g. crypto SD-card, USB crypto token, etc), but couldalso be physically embedded into the client-side platform (e.g. in anembedded secure element, TPM, TEE).

The authenticator 6201 may optionally have the capability of verifying auser. However, the underlying principles of the invention are notlimited to any specific user verification method. However, the remoteparty can learn the user verification method by looking into theattestation object and the metadata 6204.

The embodiments of the invention do not rely on any specificwire-protocol or protocol message encoding. The only requirement is thatthe assertions generated by the authenticator 6201 such as theattestation object and the attested signature object need to be“understood” by the remote party 6203. The concrete wire format maydepend on the specific platform.

This section is intended to give a first impression on how thesecanonical building blocks could be used.

In current authentication frameworks such as the FIDO UAF specification,the client is quite “heavy”. With the approaches described herein, theclient can easily be split into two parts: (1) an application softwaredevelopment kit (AppSDK) performing all of the protocol related tasks(which are too specific to be implemented in a platform) and (2) aplatform functionality that implements the security related tasks suchas binding a key to a set of software applications. With this approach,a client such as the FIDO client being a separate entity disappears.

The following is an example of a FIDO UAF being implemented on anAndroid platform extended to support these canonical building blocks.

AttestationType: No need to set it explicitly. All Android Apps willknow that they can only use the Android-Attestation method (e.g. througha FIDO AppSDK).

AAID: A unique identifier for each class of authenticator (e.g., an“authenticator attestation ID” as described above). Essentially the AAIDis reduced to some Android KeyStore Implementation using a userverification method specified when creating the key. The Key Store willlookup the AAID based on the user verification method (and the staticknowledge about its own KeyStore crypto implementation).

Username: One embodiment allows the mobile app (through the AppSDK) setthe KeyAlias to the concatenation of the keyID and the username ifpresent.

AppID: Is addressed using the appID binding (if supported).

In summary, one embodiment of the invention includes a system forauthenticating a client-side authenticator to a remote party, thatincludes:

(1) a client-side authenticator comprising (i) circuitry and/or programcode to generate cryptographic key pairs (“authentication keys”) and(ii) circuitry and/or program code attesting the identity of the keygenerating entity to a remote party.

(2) data regarding the authenticator which at least contains sufficientinformation to verify the attestation made available to the remoteparty. This data is referred to as “metadata” above.

(3) circuity and/or program code to use the generated authenticationprivate key to perform a cryptographic operation to prove possession ofthe private authentication key to the remote party.

Additionally, the authenticator might be known to restrict the use ofthe authentication private key to perform cryptographic signatureoperations on well-defined to-be-signed objects only. This well-defineto-be-signed object contains data fields controlled by the authenticatorand one or more data fields which are clearly marked to containarbitrary data (not controlled by the authenticator). The authenticatormight indicate such objects by starting them with a magic number MNfollowed by the well-defined data structure. This signature operation iscalled “attested signing” herein. This magic number MN can be chosenfreely, but it needs to be fixed and well known. One example on how toset this magic number is “ATTESTED_SIGNATURE”.

In addition, in one embodiment, the client side authenticator has theability to verify a user using an arbitrary user verification method andin which the properties of this user verification method are static(i.e. they do not change over time for any authenticator) and describedin the Metadata. The user verification method may be arbitrarily complexand even consist of multiple biometric and non-biometric modalities(e.g., PIN or fingerprint, speaker recognition in combination withPIN/Fingerprint, facial recognition, etc.).

Moreover, in one embodiment of the system, (a) the key may only be usedfor attested signing and (b) the authenticator has the ability to verifya user using a user verification method in which the properties of theuser verification method are described in the data fields controlled byauthenticator (e.g., in the attested signature). Note the userverification method might be arbitrarily complex and even consist ofmultiple biometric and non-biometric modalities (e.g., PIN orfingerprint, speaker recognition in combination with PIN/Fingerprint,facial recognition, etc.).

In one embodiment, access to the private authentication key 6105 islimited to a specified set of applications. In addition, the set may berestricted to applications considered equivalent by the platform (e.g.operating system). As an example, access to the authentication key couldbe restricted by the operating system to the applications signed usingthe same package signing key as the application which triggered the keygeneration. Moreover, the set of applications may include applicationsconsidered equivalent by the application developer through a list ofapplication facets which are considered equivalent.

In yet another embodiment, the authenticator 6102 supports securelydisplaying a transaction text and asking the user for confirming (orrejecting) this particular transaction. The transaction text may becryptographically bound to the attested signature (i.e. a cryptographichash of the transaction text will be included in one of the fieldscontrolled by the authenticator).

One embodiment of the invention implements the security related tasks ofthe FIDO UAF/U2F stack (which do not belong to the authenticator) on aplatform (e.g. the OS or the web browser) and leaves the implementationof the other protocol handling tasks to the app and thus removes theneed to implement specific protocols in the platform (i.e., removing theneed of having a FIDO Client).

Exemplary Data Processing Devices

FIG. 63 is a block diagram illustrating an exemplary clients and serverswhich may be used in some embodiments of the invention. It should beunderstood that while FIG. 63 illustrates various components of acomputer system, it is not intended to represent any particulararchitecture or manner of interconnecting the components as such detailsare not germane to the present invention. It will be appreciated thatother computer systems that have fewer components or more components mayalso be used with the present invention.

As illustrated in FIG. 63, the computer system 6300, which is a form ofa data processing system, includes the bus(es) 6350 which is coupledwith the processing system 6320, power supply 6325, memory 6330, and thenonvolatile memory 6340 (e.g., a hard drive, flash memory, Phase-ChangeMemory (PCM), etc.). The bus(es) 6350 may be connected to each otherthrough various bridges, controllers, and/or adapters as is well knownin the art. The processing system 6320 may retrieve instruction(s) fromthe memory 6330 and/or the nonvolatile memory 6340, and execute theinstructions to perform operations as described above. The bus 6350interconnects the above components together and also interconnects thosecomponents to the optional dock 6360, the display controller & displaydevice 6370, Input/Output devices 6380 (e.g., NIC (Network InterfaceCard), a cursor control (e.g., mouse, touchscreen, touchpad, etc.), akeyboard, etc.), and the optional wireless transceiver(s) 6390 (e.g.,Bluetooth, WiFi, Infrared, etc.).

FIG. 64 is a block diagram illustrating an exemplary data processingsystem which may be used in some embodiments of the invention. Forexample, the data processing system 6400 may be a handheld computer, apersonal digital assistant (PDA), a mobile telephone, a portable gamingsystem, a portable media player, a tablet or a handheld computing devicewhich may include a mobile telephone, a media player, and/or a gamingsystem. As another example, the data processing system 6400 may be anetwork computer or an embedded processing device within another device.

According to one embodiment of the invention, the exemplary architectureof the data processing system 6400 may be used for the mobile devicesdescribed above. The data processing system 6400 includes the processingsystem 6420, which may include one or more microprocessors and/or asystem on an integrated circuit. The processing system 6420 is coupledwith a memory 6410, a power supply 6425 (which includes one or morebatteries) an audio input/output 6440, a display controller and displaydevice 6460, optional input/output 6450, input device(s) 6470, andwireless transceiver(s) 6430. It will be appreciated that additionalcomponents, not shown in FIG. 64, may also be a part of the dataprocessing system 6400 in certain embodiments of the invention, and incertain embodiments of the invention fewer components than shown in FIG.64 may be used. In addition, it will be appreciated that one or morebuses, not shown in FIG. 64, may be used to interconnect the variouscomponents as is well known in the art.

The memory 6410 may store data and/or programs for execution by the dataprocessing system 6400. The audio input/output 6440 may include amicrophone and/or a speaker to, for example, play music and/or providetelephony functionality through the speaker and microphone. The displaycontroller and display device 6460 may include a graphical userinterface (GUI). The wireless (e.g., RF) transceivers 6430 (e.g., a WiFitransceiver, an infrared transceiver, a Bluetooth transceiver, awireless cellular telephony transceiver, etc.) may be used tocommunicate with other data processing systems. The one or more inputdevices 6470 allow a user to provide input to the system. These inputdevices may be a keypad, keyboard, touch panel, multi touch panel, etc.The optional other input/output 6450 may be a connector for a dock.

Embodiments of the invention may include various steps as set forthabove. The steps may be embodied in machine-executable instructionswhich cause a general-purpose or special-purpose processor to performcertain steps. Alternatively, these steps may be performed by specifichardware components that contain hardwired logic for performing thesteps, or by any combination of programmed computer components andcustom hardware components.

Elements of the present invention may also be provided as amachine-readable medium for storing the machine-executable program code.The machine-readable medium may include, but is not limited to, floppydiskettes, optical disks, CD-ROMs, and magneto-optical disks, ROMs,RAMs, EPROMs, EEPROMs, magnetic or optical cards, or other type ofmedia/machine-readable medium suitable for storing electronic programcode.

Throughout the foregoing description, for the purposes of explanation,numerous specific details were set forth in order to provide a thoroughunderstanding of the invention. It will be apparent, however, to oneskilled in the art that the invention may be practiced without some ofthese specific details. For example, it will be readily apparent tothose of skill in the art that the functional modules and methodsdescribed herein may be implemented as software, hardware or anycombination thereof. Moreover, although some embodiments of theinvention are described herein within the context of a mobile computingenvironment, the underlying principles of the invention are not limitedto a mobile computing implementation. Virtually any type of client orpeer data processing devices may be used in some embodiments including,for example, desktop or workstation computers. Accordingly, the scopeand spirit of the invention should be judged in terms of the claimswhich follow.

Embodiments of the invention may include various steps as set forthabove. The steps may be embodied in machine-executable instructionswhich cause a general-purpose or special-purpose processor to performcertain steps. Alternatively, these steps may be performed by specifichardware components that contain hardwired logic for performing thesteps, or by any combination of programmed computer components andcustom hardware components.

We claim:
 1. An apparatus comprising: a processor to execute an app; andan authenticator to generate a first authentication key and to securelystore the first authentication key, the authenticator to generate anattestation object usable by a relying party to confirm authenticity ofthe authenticator, the attestation object including a first componentprovided by the authenticator, a second component provided by the app,and a signature generated by the first authentication key over acombination of the first and second components.
 2. The apparatus as inclaim 1 wherein the first component comprises one or more attributes ofthe authenticator.
 3. The apparatus as in claim 2 wherein the secondcomponent comprises data generated by or associated with the app.
 4. Theapparatus as in claim 2 wherein the one or more attributes include afirmware version of the authenticator.
 5. The apparatus as in claim 1wherein the first component includes text associated with a transactionas confirmed by a user or a personal identification number (PIN).
 6. Theapparatus as in claim 1 wherein the authenticator includes or iscommunicatively coupled to one or more biometric sensors to readbiometric data to verify the user.
 7. The apparatus as in claim 6wherein the biometric sensors comprise fingerprint sensors, microphones,and/or cameras.
 8. The apparatus as in claim 1 wherein the authenticatoris to securely store the first authentication key in an embedded secureelement, trusted platform module, or trusted execution environment. 9.The apparatus as in claim 1 wherein the first key comprises a privatekey of a public/private key pair, the public key being stored on therelying party.
 10. The apparatus as in claim 9 further comprising: acamera capturing a sequence of images which include the user's eyes asone or more screen layouts are displayed in response to a request toauthenticate a user; an eye tracking module (a) performing eye movementdetection across the sequence of images to identify a correlationbetween motion of the user's eyes as the one or more screen layouts arepresented and an expected motion of the user's eyes as the one or morescreen layouts are presented and/or (b) measuring the eye's pupil sizeto identify a correlation between the effective light intensity of thescreen and its effect on the user's eye pupil size; and
 11. Theapparatus as in claim 10 further comprising: a voice recognition moduleto perform voice recognition techniques to determine a correlationbetween captured audio of the user's voice and one or more voice prints.12. The apparatus as in claim 11 further comprising: a facialrecognition engine to perform facial recognition to identify acorrelation between one or more images of the user's face and facialtemplate data associated with the user.
 13. The apparatus as in claim 12further comprising: the authentication engine generating an assurancelevel based on one or more of: (a) the correlation between the images ofthe user's face and facial template data associated with the user, (b)the correlation between the motion of the user's eyes and an expectedmotion of the user's eyes as the one or more screen layouts arepresented; and (c) the correlation between the captured audio of theuser's voice and the one or more voice prints.
 14. A system comprising:a client device comprising: a processor to execute an app; and anauthenticator to generate a first authentication key and to securelystore the first authentication key, the authenticator to generate anattestation object including a first component provided by theauthenticator, a second component provided by the app, and a signaturegenerated by the first authentication key over a combination of thefirst and second components; and a relying party comprising an objectverification module to confirm authenticity of the authenticator usingthe signature.
 15. The system as in claim 14 wherein the objectverification module is to use a second authentication key to generate averification signature using metadata associated with the authenticatorand to compare the verification signature with the signature generatedby the authenticator, wherein if the signatures match, then theauthenticity of the authenticator is confirmed.
 16. The system as inclaim 15 wherein the first authentication key comprises a private keyand the second authentication key comprises an associated public key.17. The system as in claim 15 wherein the first component comprises oneor more attributes of the authenticator.
 18. The system as in claim 17wherein the second component comprises data generated by or associatedwith the app.
 19. The system as in claim 17 wherein the one or moreattributes include a firmware version of the authenticator.
 20. Thesystem as in claim 14 wherein the first component includes textassociated with a transaction as confirmed by a user or a personalidentification number (PIN).
 21. The system as in claim 14 wherein theauthenticator includes or is communicatively coupled to one or morebiometric sensors to read biometric data to verify the user.
 22. Thesystem as in claim 21 wherein the biometric sensors comprise fingerprintsensors, microphones, and/or cameras.
 23. The system as in claim 14wherein the authenticator is to securely store the first authenticationkey in an embedded secure element, trusted platform module, or trustedexecution environment.
 24. A method comprising: executing an app on aclient device; generating and securely storing a first authenticationkey; generating an attestation object including a first componentprovided by an authenticator, a second component provided by the app,and a signature generated by the first authentication key over acombination of the first and second components; and confirmingauthenticity of the authenticator at a relying party using thesignature.
 25. The method as in claim 24 further comprising: using asecond authentication key to generate a verification signature usingmetadata associated with the authenticator; and comparing theverification signature with the signature generated by theauthenticator, wherein if the signatures match, then the authenticity ofthe authenticator is confirmed.
 26. The method as in claim 25 whereinthe first authentication key comprises a private key and the secondauthentication key comprises an associated public key.
 27. The method asin claim 24 wherein the first component comprises one or more attributesof the authenticator.
 28. The method as in claim 27 wherein the secondcomponent comprises data generated by or associated with the app. 29.The method as in claim 28 wherein the one or more attributes include afirmware version of the authenticator.